Lisbon Treaty (No.1)

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. The Commission has a monopoly of initiative in the field. It has always seemed strange to me that the Commission should be against most monopolies but in favour of that one. It wants to retain—indeed, under the treaty it has retained—the sole right to propose new laws. The Commission is unelected and usually comprises people who have been dis-elected—indeed, I can think of many Commissioners who lost their seats or resigned in murky and disagreeable circumstances. The system is almost anti-democratic. It is when future Commissioners are turned down by the electors in member states that they end up in that secret conclave of proto-legislators. I therefore object to the idea that we should defer to the judgments of a secretive body rather than to the people who are elected.