Explorer
Registered: Dec 2009
Posts: 536 |
06-22-12 04:02 AM
Quote from tomdavis:
The more things change, the more they stay the same....
I've gone back and reviewed EU positions from a year ago. Nothing of substance has changed.
EU-27 opposed: the UK, Sweden, the Czech Republic, and probably Denmark.
EU-17 opposed: Malta, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands.
There's still no way to get either an EU-27 agreement or an EZ-17 agreement. So that leaves enhanced cooperation as the only option.
The bigger question is: Will the FTT come to a vote, or will they kick the can down the road? As long as it doesn't get voted on Barroso and Semeta don't have to admit defeat.
http://europa.eu/legislation_summar...peration_en.htm
"[Enhanced cooperation] may be undertaken only as a last resort, when it has been established within the Council that the objectives of such cooperation cannot be attained within a reasonable period by the Union as a whole."
If there is to be an application for enhanced cooperation,there presumably would need to be a vote first of the whole 27 so Barroso and his cronies can't kick the can down the road for ever. A Dutch paper yesterday reported that the proposal would be scrapped tomorrow.
What puzzles me is how today's announcement by Germany fits in. They seem to want to push for a somewhat different FTT than that proposed by the EC which would include currencies (which doesn't even seem to be legal incidently), and I guess they wouldn't want to give the proceeds going to the EC either.
Would their proposal have to go through the same lengthy procedure that the original proposal has gone through - including being accepted by the european parliament and european commission in the first place - or, given that any new proposal would almost certainly end up with the same supporters and opponents as now, could Germany apply for enhanced cooperation on the current proposal and then be allowed to modify it (assuming they could find 8 or more others anyway which seems doubtful)?
|
