By Hilary White
LONDON, October 1, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – For some time, Euro-watchers have believed that, should the Irish voters say Yes to the Lisbon Treaty on Friday, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will take the job as first President of the newly constituted state of Europe. Now the Daily Mail newspaper reports today that Blair's appointment “will be rushed through as quickly as possible,” according to government sources.
The office of EU president, under the rules of the Lisbon Treaty, will be chosen not by Europe's voters but by the heads of the EU's 27 member states. The president of the EU will be the permanent chairman of the EU's Council of Ministers, Europe's chief decision-making body.
The news comes as a shock to no one, with Blair himself having pledged to take the job in June 2007 and French President Nicolas Sarkozy having given his full support. Blair is consulting with former Downing Street associates on strategies to secure the position. French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said yesterday that Blair was the only real candidate, “For the moment, indeed.”
The virulently pro-abortion and anti-family Tony Blair has been described by British pro-life advocates as the “principal architect of the culture of death” during his ten-year rule as Labour Prime Minister. Blair oversaw the expansion of abortion and the positioning of Britain as the most permissive country in the western world on experimentation using living human embryos. He is regarded by the country's homosexualist activists as their primary ally in the cause to create legal same-sex “civil unions” with most of the rights and recognition of natural marriage and the right to adopt children.
The Irish are starting to go to the polls on the second Lisbon referendum today, with the vote ending tomorrow night. Pro-life leaders have been strenuously campaigning against the ratification that is heavily endorsed by the Irish political class and media and business elites.
A last minute message from Slovak MEP Anna Zaborska warned that the “guarantees” obtained by the Irish government that were meant to assure voters that their laws and constitution would be protected are worthless.
Zaborska said that the “guarantees” are part of a cynical “political strategy” to convince the Irish to accept Lisbon. These, she said, “do not have any legal effect in EU law, which always has primacy over national legislation.” Declaration 17 of the Lisbon Treaty specifies that EU law takes precedence over national laws.
Zaborska said, “If the Lisbon Treaty is passed the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is part of the Treaty will become legally binding, will have primacy and will confer extensive rights to the European Court of Justice.
“Whenever there will be a discord between the Lisbon Treaty and national laws or constitutions, the EU Court in Luxemburg will decide. Recent rulings show that the EU Court of Justice is more likely to take a stand in favour of the EU legislation. Who will protect the national legislation?”
She notes that under the current treaties, the Slovak government was told by the EU in 2005, that it could not sign an “objection of conscience related to our Concordat.”
“The EU Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights (which at this time belongs to the EU Commission) declared that any provisions on objection of conscience would not be compatible with EU legislation!”
Read LifeSiteNews.com's extensive coverage of Tony Blair's anti-life and anti-family history here.
…and on the Lisbon Treaty Referendum here
To read the full statement from Anna Zaborska click here.