European Union (Amendment) Bill

Article 308 follows a line that goes back to the old article 235. It effectively grants a blank cheque, written by the UK and all the member states, in order to allow the Union to create its own powers beyond the treaties in order to pursue Union objectives, because it states:"““If action by the Union should prove necessary””—" that is its judgment—"““within the framework of the policies defined by the Treaties””—" that is in black and white—"““to attain one of the objectives set out in the Treaties””," which is something that is a matter of interpretation, usually for the Court,"““and the Treaties have not provided the necessary powers””—" I ask the question: who is to decide what is necessary and what is not?—"““the Council, acting unanimously on a proposal from the European Commission and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament, shall adopt the appropriate measures.””" I am not the slightest bit taken in by the word ““unanimously”” in this context, because the whole thing becomes a juridical exercise in which what is necessary, what judgments are to be applied and who is to make the decisions, are all matters that will be presented in order to get to the necessary objectives. The bottom line is that this provision will be used, and has already been used, even when the European treaty has not provided the necessary powers. The article has been misused because on several occasions it has been mentioned as the legal base for a proposal that has no connection with the words that were originally used but are no longer in there—"““the operation of the Common Market””." It has been way beyond that over and over again. This is effectively yet another example of a self-amending text. This is the manner in which it intrudes into areas that it would like to be able to grab, which it deems to be necessary, over which we have no control, save only through the European Court of Justice, and the spurious notion of unanimity in this context.