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SaS: Slovakia Not Ready for Lisbon Treaty, Lacking Proper Legislation
Monday 30 November 2009 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, November 30 (TASR) - The extra-parliamentary Freedom and Solidarity (Sloboda a Solidarita/SaS) party has major reservations concerning the Treaty of Lisbon, as Slovakia's legislation isn't ready yet for the Treaty's adoption, SaS Republic Council member Martin Chren said at a press conference on Monday.
Chren added that constitutional changes need to be made first, however, the Government has neglected this. He thinks that Slovakia should find inspiration in Germany, where the Constitutional Court has bound the German Chancellor to respect Germany's Parliamentary constitutional majority.
"We don't want any Slovak politician enabling the EU to take powers away from the Slovak Parliament without constitutional majority having a say first," said Chren. According to him, the Treaty of Lisbon empowers the European bureaucracy to strengthen its authority at the expense of the EU member states - without any prior consent from the parliaments of these states. All that's required is the unanimous consent of the country's representatives in Brussels.
Therefore, Chren wants to introduce a constitutional change that will preventing Slovakia's representative on the Council of the EU to give consent to strengthening the EU's authority without the approval of the Slovak parliament's constitutional majority, or at least 90 MPs.
According to Chren, Slovakia lacks a domestic amendment on proceeding with its complaints to the European Court of Justice. "The Slovak Constitutional Act on Co-operation between the Slovak Parliament and Government regarding EU Affairs grants no room to file a lawsuit for violating the principles of subsidiarity, even though Brussels allows us to do this," said Michal Niznan of SaS. Hence, according to him, Slovakia has relinquished the possibility to block European legislation from gaining paramountcy over national powers.
Niznan maintained that the Government has also failed in preparing legislation vis-a-vis the judiciary and internal security regarding immigration and asylum policies. According to him, Slovakia also lacks legislation that would enable it to take part in the joint security and defence policies of the EU. "Currently, on the basis of the Treaty of Lisbon, the Parliament can't send troops to an EU mission even if it wanted. The existing legislation only allows troops to participate in missions under the auspices of NATO," stressed Niznan. SaS is preparing a Constitutional amendment regarding these issues.
MP and parliamentary Committee for European Affairs member Katarina Tothova (HZDS-LS) regards the SaS initiative as an effort to gain publicity, as Parliament has already addressed the aforementioned issues. The committee's chairman Milan Urbani (former HZDS-LS, now independent) agrees that Slovakia stands ready for adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon.
"Slovak representatives in the Council of the EU are obliged to follow the democratically-approved stance of the Committee for European Affairs and can't change this stance, except in extremely serious cases," said Urbani, adding that not every EU member state has introduced this measure.
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