Critical Commentary on National Forum on Europe's Summary Guide to the Treaty of Lisbon

This commentary is offered to the public by organisations that form part of the Special Observer Pillar of the National Forum on Europe.

This is an examination of the Summary that was sent out to many households; it is presented here with additional in-text commentary also from the public domain, clarifying, questioning, and criticising important aspects of the summary guide.

Failure to provide a legal assessment of the constitutional significance of the Treaty is a fundamental omission from this "Summary Guide". It prevents readers of the Guide from appreciating the profound constitutional change which the Lisbon Treaty would bring about in the EU, its Member States and in the political and legal status of the 500 million citizens of the post-Lisbon European Union.

Like its predecessor, the "Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe", which the French and Dutch rejected in 2005, the Lisbon Treaty is a Constitutional Treaty which would give the EU its own Constitution indirectly rather than directly. It would do this by amending the two existing European treaties, the "Treaty on European Union" and the "Treaty Establishing the European Community". It would rename the latter the "Treaty on the Functioning of the Union". These amended treaties would then become the EU's Constitution – the TEU and the TFEU.

Together they would give the EU the constitutional form of a supranational European Federation - in effect a State - which would be separate from and superior to its 27 Member States and would make us all real citizens of this entity for the first time. This constitutionally new European Union would take over and replace the existing European Community which Ireland has been a member of since 1973. It would also take within its scope governmental powers over crime, justice and home affairs, and foreign policy and security, which have hitherto been exercised by the Member States acting "inter-governmentally" , i.e. on the basis of retained sovereignty.

Endowed with this new unified constitutional structure, this post-Lisbon EU would interact as a State with the other members of the international community of States. It would sign treaties with other States in all areas of its powers, would make the majority of our laws each year and would possess all the key features of a State apart from the power to force its component Member States to go to war against their will.

The acknowledged omission of a legal analysis from the Forum’s "Summary Guide" means that this constitutional revolution in both the Union and its Member States goes unexplained and unremarked upon. It means that the "Summary Guide" fails fundamentally to give an accurate picture of the constitutional consequences of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty. These points are further elaborated on the website.