Lisbon Treaty (No.1)

The hon. Lady is entirely right. Indeed, I have formally asked to be told the extent of the acquis communautaire—the accumulated body of laws and regulations to which we are subject—but nobody can tell me what it is. It is said by those who have tried to study it that it now runs to 170,000 pages, which no human being can comprehend. The acquis communautaire is largely beyond the reach of any democratic institution, because there is never any appetite in the European Union to withdraw, owing to the doctrine of the occupied field. Even the European Parliament is essentially powerless, and the Council of Ministers certainly is, as has been pointed out.