The Lisbon dictate includes not known clause or formulation for leaving the union. Demands that such clauses should be included, just in case, were deliberately put down by Eurocrats and politicians. EU membership was intended to be not a lifetime but an existence-time sentence.

Nice, eh? I don't know about you, but to me this tells something.

the US:hmmm:

Forget it, :hmph:

Is that the not known clause that was clearly printed in black and white and was widely debated in several countries but especially over in Britain?
The Lisbon treaty may well be a pile of crap but skybird seems to reverse things entirely, he sees really scary clauses where they don't exist and thinks real clauses which were openly debated are secret:doh:

Uhm, to my knowledge there is an exit clause within the treaty.

Yes, even Wiki has something about it:

Before the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force on 1 December 2009 no provision in the Treaties or Law of the European Union outlined the ability of a state to voluntarily withdraw from the EU. The European Constitution did propose such a provision and, after the failure to ratify the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, that provision was then included in the Lisbon Treaty.
The Treaty introduces an exit clause for members who wish to withdraw from the Union. Under Article 50, a Member State would notify the European Council of its intention to secede from the Union and a withdrawal agreement would be negotiated between the Union and that State. The Treaties would cease to be applicable to that State from the date of the agreement or, failing that, within two years of the notification unless the State and the Council both agree to extend this period. The agreement is concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council and shall set out the arrangements for withdrawal, including a framework for the State's future relationship with the Union. The agreement is to be approved by the Council, acting by qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament. A former Member State seeking to rejoin the European Union would be subject to the same conditions as any other applicant country.
Article 311a, introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon allows the status of French, Dutch and Danish overseas territories to be changed more easily, by no longer requiring a full treaty revision. Instead, the European Council may, on the initiative of the member state concerned, change the status of an overseas country or territory (OCT) to an outermost region (OMR) or vice versa.[1]


Article 50 in detail:

Article 50 TEU
1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.
2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.
3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.
4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it.
A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

Could you direct me to the place that said otherwise?

Personally I have no problem with Turkey or anyone else for that matter joining the EU.

The real question is when will the UK get the referendum it was promised to Leave the EU?

Gammelpreusse, I was unprecise on the exit clause, I admit (I cut it short). I should have said more precise that there is was no such clause planned, then was included, but being worded in a way and linked to conditions that make it anything but undisputed that any nation dedcfiding to leave, will be able to just do that, regarding formalities. What is being criticised by Euro critics (amongst others: again by former German federal president Roman Herzog) is the phrase saying that there must be mutual negotiations in which the EU agrees to terms of withdrawel. That does not sound like much, but the devil is in the detail here: formally, no nation can leave if the EU does not agree to the conditons of that withdrawing.

That is a criticiosm I do not pick out of my eccentric little brain. I just quote it and refer to it, it has been brought up by critical law experts and politicians first. With the document being some 16 or 17 poages only, the important, critical and elgally binding stuff that goes beyond vague idealistic statements in the main document, is hidden inside the more than 600 pages of complicated appendices - this is where the real deal is set, the first 16 pages of the main document in fact give an impression of being just vague and meaning not much. For a novice, it is almost impossible to find all the critical things and make the links - and I tried it myself, and still have the pdf stored on my HD. You depend on an insider expert to decypher the whole damn thing.


The complicated, deceiving and misleading design of the document is intentional - to prevent wide understanding of the far-leading implications. They could as well have used a small print so small that you cannot read it even when using a magnifier.

Well, I can see where this can be regarded as critical, but no exit clause still is fundamentally different to exit through consensus. That no country can just leave is not that of a wonder, really, because given the economic integration one country just exiting just so without any kind of negotiation whatsoever with the rest might cause quite some turbulence for all others.

That is even more true as the EU is not so much based on fixed law, but compromise with each state having a different mix of extra rules cut for their individual needs.

In this light waht is even more important here is...there is not a single article stating that a member is forced to stay. So in case of disagreement the EU would have no legal means to force a member to stay. And if it tried, all hell would break lose from those countries that are critical to too much EU power, and there are enough of these within the EU. And the EU itself has no military power whatsoever to enforce anything, meaning there would need to be a nation willing and wanting to deploy troops. I seriously see no scenario where this is realistic ever under the current construction and political reality of the EU.


Seen in this light, I am not that alarmed by this clause. It actually makes a lot of sense to me.

But the problem remains: the EU can prolongue any exit negotiations for eternal time (like Germany tried to do it with Turkey since 40 years just to escape any issuing of a clear "no"). It is to be questioned why the demand for any more direct and precise definitions about timetables and contents of exit negotiations has been put down, it is to be quesationed why even the vague exist clause there is just appeared o slate, in the last draft, and against so much resistence of the EU, and it is to be questioned why the existing vague exit clause is minimised in significance by several key polliticians and leaders and EU representatives. The whole thing is designed to be minimising for any success of exist negotiations, it should reduce chances to a very minimum that is discouraging for any exit candidate, and it should be discouraging by promising endless negotiation s that will go on for long time, if not many years. By this the EU can say that exist is possible ion theory - while i8n reality in fact it is almost impossible, legally and formally. The hurdles have been risen to maximum heights.

And the EU formally always has the option to make an exit of a member state impossible, because a majority of memberstates needs to agree on the results of such exiost negotiations. If this majority is not being gained, formally any EU member is not allowed to leave, period. This is indeed one of the two biggest criticisms against the format of the exist clause, and I jzust say it is extremely suspicious indeed. Of course we speak about Ffrmalities here - if that member state wanting to pull out is clever, it will leave anyway, no matter what the others think of that ands what they do in order to prevent that exit.

Again, this criticism is not just imagined by me. Like most concerns I have about this damn treaty, it was Roman Herzog bringing it to my awareness. And Herzog is no dilletant on legal and constitutional issues, but is an outspoken expert of European treaties and the German constitution. He was heading the Constitutional High Court as it's president before becoming the Federal president. Compared to his competence and reason, the current office holder Wulff is just a charicature and naive "Dummschwätzer"..

A lot of frank discussion here...as we say, "Let's talk turkey".

Myself I don't know too much about it but Sky has a good point.

Christians have a more open door policy than the muslim religion.

It is strictly forbidden to even set foot in Mecca if you are not muslim--at least I have heard, haven't tried.

I have always considered Turkey to be a part of Asia, Asia Minor in earlier times.

The whole thing sounds to me like political grand standing, hoping some one will yield to avoid being labled.

I am not dismissing your points nor the general critique. Just to make sure you read this part. Especially your points about timetables and contents of exit negotiations are glaring omissions. I very much agree to that and see those as obvious shortages in the exit clause as well.

I am just not seeing it as one sided as you present it.

For example, I do not share your opinion that exit in praxis is "almost impossible". I simply see it as they way it is presented, that states will have to negotiate their treaty, based on the fact that a simple exit without any kind of negotiation and clearing of contract issues is a huge danger to economic and political stability and thus not very preferable. I see, however, neither a broad agenda nor the political will to intentionally sabotage such an exit. Neither do I see legal nor illegal means to force a member to stay in the Union in case a country wants to break lose without the will to negotiate but eventual political and economic isolation.

The biggest problem in this clause is to bring in a majority of countries voting for this exit. But this is how democracy, even democracy that is based on whole nations instead directly on the people, works. You have to get majorities to get your way, you can't just break lose and go your own way. Neither could Bavaria in Germany, despite them even having a party there with exactly this goal. Or any other region in a nation state in Europe. Just ask the Basques. And any country that joins the EU, which is entirely voluntarily, knows this. So these countries made a choice, and once they made it, they have to stick to their decision and play by the rules. More so, most countries currently in the EU joined on their own free will long before the Lisbon treaty, despite the lack of such an exit clause. So arguably, the EU is improving, not getting worse in this issue.

And I repeat, I see your points and I agree that to bring those issues up is legitimate, just too one sided to only make up an opinion on them alone. And given how the EU is made up and what means she has to force others to follow her ruling, not even overly dangerous nor oppressive if it really comes down to a country wanting to leave at all costs.

Christian Wulff is Merkels laptog. A nice man with his own integrity, but he fits more to Kindergarten Bastelgruppen or as a Waldorfschule teacher then into Bellevue. Completely with you on this.

"My points", as you ccall them, are not my points, but that of critics whose arguments I follow and just "quote": because they make sense to me, more sense than the official propaganda line at least, and because of the reputation and background of these critics.

It is not my personal conspiration theory, but worries and concerns of insiders knowing the matter and links much better than I will ever do. And in the end the words of a Roman Herzog, Valery Giscard-d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt have much more weight to me than those of an Angela Merkel, Manuel Barosso, Claude Juncker or Nobody Rumpoy. And if even the two fathers of the Eu treateies, Giscard-d'Estaing and Schmidt, criticise the shapew the EU has gotten during the last 20 years, then this tells me something.

And Wulff, I think he jumps with a happy smile to snap the pralines Merkel is throwing to him when he did something the way she thinks he should. Blair was Bush's poodle, and Wulff is Merkel's. Gauck would have been the far better choice for the post, with far more moral integrity and authority. Wulff's submissive basic attitude is - ashaming.So much I rate all he did in office, as failings: that he made a Muslim close friend of a known Islamic and ultranationalistic Turk a minister in his old cabinet befor eleaving, his acting regarding the causa Sarrazin, his infantile christmas appearance on TV that was meant to be "innovative", and his latest stunt during the Auschwitz remembrance when he acted with masochistic submission and implied that generations of even not yet born Germans being responsible for what has happened 70 years ago.

Disgusting, naive, and spineless. Gauck never would have dared to stage appearances like that.

What does Turkey mean.

Europe is an atheist club so no worry or is that worse even? :O:

The late pope Jean Paul II wanted to have a reference to europe's judaic christian roots in the european constitution (or more precisely constitutional treaty). Alas that was not to pass, mostly because we have a bunch of pussy politically correct people governing us. Just shows you how much we are willing to negate in order to appease everyone. There is nothing wrong in stating the historical truth. And europe is not just some abstract concept, it is defined historically, politically and culturally. And all this is being negated because of external influences trying to convert "europe" to some kind of international club comprising not only european countries but also countries in the middle east (there was talking of taking in israel for example :down: ). What the hell ? Those that want some kind of amorphous europe (mostly americans for their own self interests of course) would they be willing to incorporate Mexico and Canada into a greater USA ? You know since they are in the same continent. Doesn't matter that historically, culturally and politically the US is as different from Canada as Canada is from Mexico.
So no to Turkey in the european union, and no to the maghreb countries and no to the middle eastern countries. Europe is a judiac christian club foremost (if you want to put it this way) and lastly a western club and a nato alliance.

Nice, do we then accept in the EU the bit of Russia that extends to the Urals, and discard the rest ?