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Proceeding contribution from Lord Hannay of Chiswick (Crossbench) in the House of Lords on Tuesday, 17 May 2011. It occurred during Committee of the Whole House (HL) and Debate on bill on European Union Bill.


European Union Bill

Perhaps the Minister would not mind going back about one minute to what he was saying about advocates-general and members of the European Court of Justice. I think that sometimes the Government seem not to be very aware of the chemistry of decision-making in the European Union. The fact of the matter is that so long as you need unanimity to appoint these judges, we will never block one because we will be terrified that somebody will block ours. The chemistry is that so long as there is unanimity, nobody blocks anything and everyone goes through on the nod. That has been true ever since the European Union was set up. If you have QMV for this, and I am not saying that we should move to it immediately, there would be no such ““see no evil, hear no evil”” approach because you would be terrified that if you tried to block someone on abusive grounds, you would be overridden. I think that some of the arguments that the Minister used about—


Secondary information

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
727 c1372 
Session
2010-12
Chamber / Committee
House of Lords chamber
Subjects
Administration of justice Contributions European Union Discrimination Electoral systems EU budget Economic and monetary union EU justice and home affairs Referendums Treaties Treaty on European Union UK membership of EU Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
Legislation
European Union Bill 2010-12
Link
View this Proceeding contribution on www.publications.parliament.uk