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The European Defense Fund (EDF) moved closer to becoming reality this week in Strasbourg when MEPs gave it the green light. However, some uncertainties persist as a legal expert opinion obtained by EurActiv suggests that establishing the fund could be violating EU law. […] In the run-up to the vote in the plenary, however, the Left party in the Parliament commissioned a legal opinion to assess whether the EDF is compatible with European Union law. According to Andreas Fischer-Lescano of the University of Bremen, who drafted the legal study, the Lisbon Treaty explicitly prohibits the financing of military or defense...

During the Bretton Woods Conference, in 1944, Lord Halifax is said to have “whispered to Lord Keynes: ‘It’s true: they have the money bags but we have all the brains.’” By “they,” Halifax meant the Americans. His frustration with the American mind—often prosaic and anti-intellectual—during the critical Bretton-Woods negotiations seems as valid today. As odious as Britain’s elites are; boy, are they cleverer than ours. Take the impromptu interview, on June 28, which Richard Quest, CNN’s imported British broadcast journalist, conducted with Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party. Farage had emerged exhilarated from the coven that is the...

FRANCE today told Britain to appoint a new prime minister within “a few days” and to immediately quit the EU by soon triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty. Speaking in Berlin following a meeting of the six founding member states of the EU, French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told the UK not to play a “cat and mouse” game following the historic Brexit vote. He said: “Of course a new prime minister must be appointed, that will probably require a few days but this is quite urgent.

BRUSSELS: EU chiefs on Friday told Britain to start negotiations to quit the bloc "as soon as possible", after outgoing Prime Minister David Cameron said he would leave the negotiations to his successor. "We now expect the United Kingdom government to give effect to this decision of the British people as soon as possible, however painful that process may be," said a joint statement after Britons voted for a Brexit . "Any delay would unnecessarily prolong uncertainty." The statement was issued by EU president Donald Tusk, European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker, EU Parliament leader Martin Schulz and Dutch premier Mark...

Swedish defense minister Karin Enstrom has said her country is not in NATO partly because the EU treaty contains its own security guarantee. Speaking to EUobserver at the GLOBSEC conference in Bratislava on Saturday (20 April), she said: “If you really read it, the Lisbon Treaty says you must support your EU neighbors with all the necessary means.” Referring to Lisbon’s article 42.7, she noted: “Since the EU is not a military alliance, it’s not like article five [NATO’s collective security clause], but there is this line which says all EU member states must support any other member state if...

The prophecies are not just about pointing to literal events prophesied to happen, such as the destruction of Damascus or the attack by Iran and Russia on Israel. The prophesies also describe the states of mind and emotional turmoil that will accompany the conditions that God is setting up for His final pieces to be fulfilled. This essay is about the emotional and mental conditions that are prophesied and are already here. First, this excerpt from the Sydney Morning Herald-- EU Leaders Roll the Dice as Eurogeddon Looms 'Eurogeddon'? Interesting way to put it. "Could the Euro be saved? After...

James Kirkup and Robert Winnett’s excellent piece for The Telegraph should be the first item the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary read this morning. The article is important because it reveals in stark terms exactly what the Treaty of Lisbon is all about in the minds of the unelected Brussels elites – a golden opportunity to dramatically expand the supranational powers of the EU over the affairs of independent European nation states, including that of Great Britain. The Telegraph article records the views of the EU’s newly installed Ambassador to the United States, Joao Vale de Almeida, who now claims...

Abstract: The European Union finally succeeded in ramming through introduction of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009. The treaty was touted by the powers in Brussels as the vehicle that would create the long-awaited "single phone line" to Europe. Lisbon was to streamline the gargantuan EU bureaucracy and make communication between the two sides of the Atlantic smooth and tidy. Instead, the mess is worse than before, with five EU "presidents" tripping over each other and confusing Washington with ill-defined, overlapping, and flat-out confusing roles and foreign policy objectives. The Lisbon Treaty essentially allows the EU a foreign policy power-grab,...

This year, the 27-nation European Union was supposed to come of age as an actor on the world stage, bolstered by the Lisbon Treaty, which streamlines the EU's cumbersome institutions. Instead, Europe is starting to look like the loser in a new geopolitical order dominated by the U.S. and emerging powers led by China. When the world's policy and economic elite gather Wednesday in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum, much of the talk will be about the rise of a "G-2" world where the U.S. and China are the most important players. A growing number of European...

"The Europe as you know it from visiting, from your parents, or friends is on the verge of collapsing." Geert Wilders said this in a speech he made in the U.S. last year. He went on: "We are now witnessing profound changes that will forever alter Europe's destiny and might send the continent in what Ronald Reagan called 'a thousand years of darkness.'" This applies not just to Europe, but to America as well. Been to Europe lately? Thought it was bad? You ain't seen nothing yet. The passage of the Lisbon Treaty, hailed by Barack Obama, nailed the coffin...

The Lisbon Treaty is Ratified The Lisbon Treaty is a reformatted "treaty" to replace the constitution thatfailed ratification owing to the French and Dutch rejection of it a few years ago. As is typical for the EU, they merely repackaged it, renamed it, and passed it by having the individual nation's parliaments approved it, instead of allowing the people to vote on it (Ireland was an exception to this). Jean Monnet, the true founder of the EU, suggested that to obtain passage of significant matters in the EU; never allow the people to vote onthe issue. That advice is now...

The European Union's Lisbon Treaty has come into force with the aim of streamlining EU decision-making. The first EU president also took office along with the bloc's new foreign policy chief. The European Union welcomed the Lisbon Treaty with a ceremony in Lisbon, Portugal where the text was first signed. Getting all 27 EU states to ratify it however, was a long and arduous process that was only completed last month. The new treaty lays out a series of fundamental changes within the European Union, including creating the bloc's first permanent president. That job has gone to former Belgian prime...

We woke up in a different country today. Alright, it doesn’t look very different. The trees still seem black against the winter sun; the motorways continue to jam inexplicably; commuters carry on avoiding eye contact. But Britain is no longer a sovereign nation. At midnight last night, we ceased to be an independent state, bound by international treaty to other independent states, and became instead a subordinate unit within a European state. Yes, a European state. Take a quick dekko at the definition set out in Article One of the1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States: “The...

The world is becoming unsafer by the day. Before the end of November, half a billion new terrorists will be added to the list kept by the US government. On November 30, one day before the Lisbon Treaty is scheduled to take effect, the ministers of justice of the EU's 27 member states will sign yet another security agreement with the US. It is supposed to be an essential weapon in the global “War on Terror” the US claims to be fighting. Under the new agreement, the US government will get access to all the banking data of all Europeans....

IN September 1962, amidst a growing public debate about the possibility of Britain joining the European Community, the Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell told his party’s conference: “We must be clear about this: it does mean, if this is the idea, the end of Britain as an independent European state. It means the end of a thousand years of history.” With each passing decade the wisdom of his words has become ever more apparent as our nationhood has been systematically demolished by the insidious process of European integration. The drive by the Eurocrats to impose the Lisbon Treaty has made a...

This year's conference of the Francophone European Association for Bahá’í Studies (Association francophone européenne des études bahá’íes, AFEEB) on 24 and 25 October 2009 in Luxembourg discussed the future world order and global governance. The programme included a presentation of the concept of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) by the Chairman of the Committee for a Democratic U.N., Andreas Bummel. Outlining the path towards a directly elected world parliament, Mr Bummel stressed the "spiritual dimension" of the efforts. "The establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly would represent a changed consciousness. For the first time in human history such a...

Mr Klaus was the last head of state to sign the Treaty. It now has legal force across the European Union's 27 countries. "I announce that I signed the Lisbon Treaty at 15.00 [2pm GMT] today," said Mr Klaus, speaking in the Czech capital, Prague. He had signalled he would put pen to paper after getting a British-style opt-out to the Charter of Fundamental Rights at an EU summit in Brussels last week. Gordon Brown earlier welcomed the final ruling by the Czech constitutional court that the Lisbon Treaty would not damage Czech sovereignty. Like other European leaders, the British...

Conservative government will not give a referendum on the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty. The Tory party leader’s admission, which could come as early as Tuesday, will bring accusations that he has broken clear promises to grant a popular vote on the treaty. Mr Cameron gave voters an “iron-clad” promise in 2007 that a Conservative government would hold a popular vote on Lisbon. And, in May this year, he said: "A progressive reform agenda demands that we redistribute power from the EU to Britain and from judges to the people. We will therefore hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty." But...

The Czech Constitutional Court is hearing what could be the last legal challenge to the EU's Lisbon Treaty. It has begun considering a case brought by 17 Eurosceptic senators who say the treaty would create a superstate, and as such infringes Czech sovereignty. The treaty, which aims to streamline the way the EU is run, must be approved by all 27 member countries before it can become law. The Czech Republic is the only country which has yet to sign. The 15-member Czech Constitutional Court panel has convened in the city of Brno.

The Czech Cabinet meets in emergency session today to consider how to persuade their stubborn President to sign the Lisbon treaty — under intense pressure from Paris and Berlin to complete the ratification as soon as possible. With President Klaus demanding a last-minute amendment as the price of his signature — the final approval required in the 27-nation European Union — the Government is locked in a trial of strength with its head of state and on the brink of a constitutional crisis. If it supports his demands the treaty might have to be reopened amid lengthy delays, possibly allowing...