This article below is written in reply to a certain Franco Farrugia, who in a letter to the Malta Independent stated that I am ill informed about the nature of the EU and that I am bent on 'misguiding' the public.

In a letter entitled ‘A serious flaw’ Franco Farrugia writes that I write with ‘blind fury against the EU’. He omits the context of that ‘fury’, a whole article entitled ‘The end of independence’ by focusing solely on the last couple sentences which dealt with the Italian crucifix issue.

If one reads the whole article it is clear that the ECHR ruling was set as an example of what is likely to follow when a nation surrenders it’s sovereignty to supra-national and ultimately democratically unaccountable institutions. But I will elaborate on the significance on ECHR case-law further down.

The crux of the article was that with the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty, Malta and other member states ceased to be independent and sovereign. I believe that most sensible people would find that the ‘fury’ directed at an undemocratic and illegitimate process to bring this ratification about is totally justified.

In the article I remind that the Lisbon Treaty has been ratified after:

The Dutch and French voted no to the European constitution.

The elite ignored these results and deceitfully and blatantly re-branded the EU constitution as the Lisbon Treaty.

That it has been called a treaty for the explicit purpose of avoiding popular referendums in member states – terrified as the EU elite are of democratic mandates.

The reneging on electoral promises of a referendum such as was the case in Britain.

The Irish, the only people to have a say (because their leaders could not avoid it) were bullied into a revote a year after saying no.

I am proud to be incandescent at such a blatant and consistent contempt for democracy.

Now, I challenge Mr. Farrugia to answer honestly:

Will the post-Lisbon EU have a “legal personality” for the first time?

Will we not be conferred real EU Citizenship with a legal standing ?

Will EU Law have primacy on the laws of member states?

Will our obligations as citizens to the EU therefore not have primacy to those owed to our own country?

Will it not have a president and a foreign minister?

Will it not have its own Supreme Court ?

Will it not have its own Central Bank and monetary policy?

Will not the post Lisbon EU Supreme Court (ECJ) be bound by past case-law including rulings by the EHCR as specified in the preamble of the charter of fundamental rights?

I quote:

“This Charter reaffirms, with due regard for the powers and tasks of the Union and for the principle of subsidiarity, the rights as they result, in particular, from the constitutional traditions and international obligations common to the Member States, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the Social Charters adopted by the Union and by the Council of Europe and the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union and of the European Court of Human Rights”

The declaration in the Lisbon Treaty on primacy of law includes:

“the Treaties and the law adopted by the Union on the basis of the Treaties have primacy over the law of Member States, under the conditions laid down by the said case law.”

**Isn’t it logical to conclude therefore – that the case law of the European Court of human Rights will be part and parcel of EU law which will have primacy on those of Member states?

Who is misguiding who Mr. Farrugia?

Isn’t it true that in comparison with the previous treaties that the European Council and the European Central Bank, both of which existed in previous treaties now become fully-fledged institutions – i.e., part of the government – of the Union?.

Isn’t it true that by the virtue of the European Council becoming a fully fledged institution in it’s own right, the heads of states and governments of the member states, who comprise the European Council, cease to represent their own member state interests and become absorbed into the EU government itself, bound by its laws and obliged to further the aims and objectives of the Union?

This is actually set out in the treaty, which states that it "shall aim to promote its (the Union's) values, advance its objectives, serve its interests, those of its citizens and those of the Member States…".

Isn’t it therefore not a coincidence that, in the pecking order, the Union comes first, the "citizens" second and the member states third and last? Does this not mean that our heads of states and governments become subservient to the European Union?

Who is misguiding who Mr. Farrugia?

Overtly, nothing will change much on the 2^nd of December, the day after the Lisbon Treaty comes into effect. The preferred “road to ever closer union” has always been to leave the apparatus of the member states in place, “to leave the facades intact, but to hollow them out from within”

But a nation which is no longer responsible for its monetary policy, for its foreign policy and whose constitution and laws no longer enjoy primacy in its own realm does not qualify as an independent and sovereign state - no matter what the likes of Mr. Farrugia choose to call it.

With the Lisbon Treaty in effect, Malta will be as sovereign as any US State is in the USA, and in many areas of policy much less so.

For a brief moment, Europeans like myself, entertained the hope that the European Union could be reformed into “a clear, open, effective, democratically controlled Community approach".

Contrary to public sentiment and without a legitimate mandate , our European leaders opted for the creation of a behemoth instead. If the past is anything to go by, the future will no doubt demonstrate that it is this judegment which will have been proven “seriously flawed”

Mr. Farrugia concluded by stating that his letter* “*proves, therefore, that either John Spiteri and AN are seriously misguided or else, they are out to misguide the public. They appear to be ill-versed and poor in their knowledge of EU affairs.”

History will judge who has misguided the public and when the smoke of propaganda clears and the dust of deceit settles, the truth will be self evident even to the likes of Mr. Farrugia. I hope that he will then be a “gentlemen enough as to write back and retract” from what he said.

By then it will be too late. Short of a new declaration of independence, it already is.