LISBON TREATY RATIFICATION
A Day of Shame
For The German Parliament!
by Helga Zepp-LaRoucheMrs. Zepp-LaRouche is the chairman of the Civil Rights Solidarity Movement (BüSo) in Germany, which has been organizing throughout Germany against the Lisbon Treaty. Her statement is translated from German, and subheads have been added.
April 24, 2008 will be noted in the annals as the day in which 517 German Members of Parliament, for a variety of reasons, agreed to ratify a major treaty in total disregard for the Constitution, an action which, in practical terms, means annihilating the Constitution, and which is supposed to realize an oligarchical dictatorship in Europe.
The biggest scandal in all of this is that with very few exceptions, the majority of the MPs have not even troubled to read the Lisbon Treaty, or, as one stated flatly, "A non-issue, in our Parliamentary group."
It seems at least for now that the calculation that the European governments' leaders worked out last Dec. 13, was not merely to approve the Lisbon Treaty, but to wave it through their domestic parliaments, without any puplic debate in the media or in the parliaments—at least not in a way noticeable by the population.
All this boils down to is a cold coup from above, whereby the pitiful remains of any legislative competences that the domestic parliaments still enjoy, are to be handed over, lock, stock, and barrel, to the European Union dictatorship in Brussels.
But there will be an aftermath, and not in Germany alone. The matter will go up to the German Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and to other courts, where the matter of breach of the various domestic constitutions will be raised, and also the fact that the Lisbon Treaty purports to make all the constitutions functionless.
One of the most severe violations is that, according to Section 20, Article 2 of the German Constitution,[1] all authority emanates from the people, and if the people elect MPs, it is precisely to represent that right of the sovereign, the people. In earlier decisions, the German Constitutional Court has held that the representatives may indeed delegate some part of that right—for example, to the European Union; but 100%?
Through the Lisbon Treaty, all power has in effect been taken from the citizens, parliamentary democracy has been suspended, and any policy formulation delegated to the newly created office of the European President (who will be elected for two and a half years), to the Council of Ministers, and to the EU Commission.
This amounts to a thoroughgoing change to the Constitution, that comes within the purview of Section 146, which reads: "This Basic Law, which is valid for the entire German people following the achievement of the unity and freedom of Germany, shall cease to be in force on the day on which a constitution adopted by a free decision of the German people comes into force."[2]
The EU Treaty, which is seen by reputed legal scholars, according to their legal conception, as degrading the domestic parliament to the rank of a mere "regional administrative entity," amounts in reality to a change of the Constitution, even if the heads of state used the transparent trick to change the name to "Treaty," rather than "Constitution," after the people of France and Holland rejected the European Constitution by referenda in 2005.
Apart from a tiny handful of German MPs, most have simply waved the Treaty through this week, without even troubling to read it. The document—which intentionally is completely unreadably save by a legal scholar—was first published in consolidated form on April 15 ("consolidated" refers to the original European Constitution, which is henceforth consolidated in the new Treaty with all subsequent addenda, changes, explanations, and so forth). Consequently, every single one of those MPs, who, from the depth of his ignorance and indifference, has thus baldly disregarded his responsibilities as a representative of the people and approved the Treaty, should only receive one answer: to be voted out of office as quickly as possible.
Media Are Shamelessly Complicit
If another proof were been necessary, here you have it, that the mass media in Europe (and, of course, especially in Germany), are controlled top-down: Between Dec. 13, 2007, when the heads of state signed the Lisbon Treaty, and April 24, when the Parliament ratified it, there has been not one article or report in any major German news outlet, purporting to analyze, report on, or discuss the pros and cons of a piece of law that strikes at the core of our social order.
To add insult to injury, the day after Parliament voted, i.e., April 25, Bild Zeitung published a page-two article under the headline: "EU Treaty—Bild reveals the small print." The paper points to some of the disastrous and undemocratic changes, as if saying, "Too bad, Europe just turned into a dictatorship now! So folks, you'd better get used to it."
The shameless and complete complicity of the mass media begs once again the question of who exactly runs them.
Another example of the media's character: Although the entire world can see for themselves, via the Internet, the images in which soldiers who are seen to attack Tibetan demonstrators are actually wearing Indian and Nepalese unforms, the print and electronic media have nonetheless kept referring to those soldiers as "Chinese." Nor has a single newspaper or television program cared to put the matter to rights. The examples of such manipulation by the mass media are too numerous to mention.
Sophistical Arguments
As for those who deliberately support the EU Treaty, their arguments boil down to sophistry, and they cautiously skirt round all discussion of the brass-tacks of the changes. One of the sophists' main arguments is that anyone who dares to criticize the EU Treaty, is actually an enemy of Europe. Or that "peace" in Europe shall now be "secured" through this Treaty, and that the 20th Century's world wars would never have occurred, had all these nations been thus joined into a centralized Europe.
As it happens, those world wars were not the work of a single nation, but of empire.
It was the British, the Austro-Hungarian, the Tsarist Empire, as well as the German Reich, that provoked World War I.
Another sophistical argument is that Europe must be pumped up to confront U.S. unilateralism, that what we now need is a "multipolar" world.
Multipolar indeed—if that means a United States in an imperial mode, alongside an imperial Europe, and a British Empire retooled as an expanded Commonwealth; the three being used as a battering ram against the aspirations of Russia, China, and India to become world powers. This then is the very stuff of which the first world war of the 21st Century will be made.
If Europe is to be strong, then let her be so as de Gaulle understood it: Europe of the Fatherlands, of sovereign republics, that work together on a bilateral and multilateral basis and engage positively with the rest of the world. Whereas the EU dictatorship, now moving to do away with democracy by pulling the wool over our citizens' eyes, will no longer have to waste time playing hypocritical little games of "human rights" and democracy" to the world, that are a mere pretext to launch preventive wars in the guise of "conflict resolution."
Still Time To Debate!
But the die is not yet cast.
There are organizations on the move in 30 European cities, demonstrating against the EU Treaty in response to an appeal launched by Etienne Chouard, who led the fight against the Treaty during the French referendum in 2005. Every Wednesday, these demonstrations take place, drawing passers-by into precisely the debate that Parliament and the mass media have attempted to choke off.
On the legal front, initiatives are now afoot to stop the Treaty in its tracks. In the Czech Republic, a majority in the Senate has postponed all decision until the Constitutional Court has examined the legitimacy of the procedure and the Treaty's contents.
Similar efforts are under way in Austria, France, Germany,
Italy, Denmark, and Great Britain. A referendum is to be held on June 12 in Ireland, preceded by a huge mobilization of Irish farmers, whose interests have been sold down the river by the EU bureaucracy during the World Trade Organization negotiations, despite looming famine worldwide.
There is still time in Germany to force a debate onto the table, as the Senate will vote only in late May. The opportunity will arise throughout the year to decide on a structure for Europe that actually corresponds to the citizenry's aspiration to democracy and freedom. One should never forget that this very year will see an incredible intensification of the worldwide financial crisis, that will make the best-laid plans of our "think inside the box" politicians into a stack of crumbling paper.
The time to debate the upholding of our freedom and our republican principles in Europe, is now!
[1] Article 20 (Basic principles of state order, right to resist).
- The Federal Republic of Germany is a democratic and social Federal state.
- All state authority emanates from the people. It is exercised by the people by means of elections and voting and by separate legislative, executive, and judicial organs.
- Legislation is subject to the constitutional order; the executive and the judiciary are bound by the law.
- All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order, should no other remedy be possible. (inserted 24 June 1968)
http://www.constitution.org/cons/germany.txt
[2] Duration of validity of the Basic Law (amended by Unification Treaty of Aug. 31, 1990 and Federal statute Sept. 23, 1990).
