Whatever the outcome of the UK’s referendum on the EU, the UK
will not leave the Brussels institutions. That is a good thing for world
peace because it means that democracies will have a stronger means to
fight dangerous Islamic nuclear proliferation. Let me explain.
The EU’s founder, Robert Schuman, at the time of the Soviet A-bomb detonation in 1949, conceived a plan to make nuclear war “not only unthinkable but materially impossible.” A decade later the European Atomic Energy Community or Euratom was born.
What is the reaction of the European Atomic Energy industries to the UK Brexit referendum? The European Commission refuses to give a clear idea of the repercussions of a BREXIT leave vote. The Lisbon Treaties define the European Union. The European Atomic Energy Community which has practically the same institutions is defined by one of the treaties of Rome, 1957.
What will happen if the UK voters elect to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016? Are the industries themselves working on the basis that the UK will remain a full member of the European Atomic Energy Community with all the privileges and duties so appertaining?
I have been unable to elicit an adequate reply so far from the main Forum on Atomic matters, ForAtom. Why? A multi-billion industry is at stake! Nuclear produces 27 percent of the EU’s electricity. The industrialists, it seems, do not wish to raise their heads above the parapet. Brexit is such a controversial topic, it will shake the whole of Europe.
The UK referendum question does not include membership of Euratom. In Rome in 1957 Western European Governments signed two treaties. One treaty of Rome was for the Economic Community, EEC. The EEC has since been expanded into the European Union. The second Rome Treaty was for the European Atomic Energy Community, Euratom. It remains separate and intact except for minor changes. The two are connected only by protocols.
UK electricity production
The UK Government has announced the EU referendum procedure with the question confirmed as being
“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”
I posed some more questions to Foratom:
That sounds like a spoon-fed answer from the European Commission. Is this true?
No. The idea that Euratom is included in the exit clause of the Lisbon Treaties is false.
Article 50 deals with the TWO Treaties of Lisbon. They are called the Treaty on the European Union, TEU and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, TFEU. The TEU AND TFEU are referred to in Article 48 as “the treaties”. Art 48 is the context for ‘treaties’ of art 50. No other treaties are mentioned here.
The Euratom treaty is not mentioned in all the articles of TEU or the TFEU. There is no reason or legal permission for including Euratom in any part of article 50 or the text of TEU or TFEU.
On the other hand, the Council of Europe and the Convention of Human Rights etc, and NATO are mentioned in the Lisbon Treaties’ articles.
There is more logic in including NATO and Council of Europe than the Euratom treaty within the ambit of Article 50. Does this mean that all these treaties must be rescinded too? Is that what the Commission is also getting at? Obviously not. It has no authority to even mention NATO’s Treaty of Washington or the London Statute of the Council of Europe. The EU has no say-so over their memberships.
Euratom is only mentioned in protocols — one of which merely re-affirms Euratom’s existing privileges, Protocol 7. The signatories agreed also that Protocol 35 about the Constitution of Ireland should be attached to both Euratom and Lisbon treaties separately. Hence it is clear from this instruction by government ministers that the Euratom Treaty was treated separately and as a distinct entity from the Lisbon treaties.
Both these protocols –the one on privileges and the other on the Irish Constitution — indicate that Euratom must be treated as a quite separate treaty. The NATO Treaty would more arguably than Euratom be included within the ambit of the exit clause of Article 50, because it is referred to by name. Obviously neither are included.
What happens if, in spite of this evidence, the European Commission insists that UK must leave Euratom? The European Commission would be deciding for itself that a LEAVE EU vote meant that UK must also leave Euratom. That seems to be in total contradiction with the legal facts. It would open up a great, long legal dispute at the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
Would the Atomic Energy industry agree to closing down all the duties and privileges, finance and funding, legal and regulatory powers implicit in the British membership of Euratom on the basis of this dubious logic that it is included in Lisbon treaty’s article 50? What happens to the Community ownership of fissile material? What happens to Euratom agencies and establishments? What would be the future for JET, the Joint European Torus, that produced clean fusion energy and could help solve Europe’s energy dependencies?
The Euratom treaty for good reasons of nuclear security does not have the equivalent of an exit clause. That is related to the twin concepts at the heart of Euratom.
Firstly it is designed to encourage the peaceful uses of atomic energy. That implies that it should discourage the non-peaceful, warlike uses of atomic bombs. Euratom is essentially a non-proliferation treaty, although politicians fail to act on its potentialities. The atomic bombs are not themselves the major problem. No more than Howitzers or blunderbusses, airplanes or satellites. A computer hacker can arguably cause more harm and damage than a bomb. Should computers be banned? The issue that will render blunderbusses and nuclear bombs, chemical and bacterial weapons peaceful is true Democratic control. Canada armed with all these weapons is no threat to world peace. Neither is Switzerland. Why? Because of democratic control.
Iran on the other hand is a gigantic threat to world peace. Why? It does not have a peaceful ideology, nor democratic control. It wants to wipe out Israel and conquer the world for a Shi’ite Mahdi, its own version of a warlike Messiah. Ayatollah Khomeini declared: “we will stand against the whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all {unbelievers}.” The instigators of the Pakistani nuclear bomb declared their ultimate goal as an Islamic Atomic Bomb.
The second key aspect of the Euratom treaty that helps insure peace is the article 86. This says that all fissile (that is nuclear) materials designated inside the treaty are Community property.
That is the ultimate way of controlling the atomic bomb. No one nation has a monopoly of the dangerous bomb material. If any one Member State of the Euratom Community turned to dictatorship and decided it wanted to wage war on a neighbor, it would find the procedure difficult. It would only be able to produce a few bombs and all its neighbours combined would be able to vastly compete with it to restore democracy.
That is why the UK referendum should be about Democracy not some obscure economic issues everyone has forgotten about. It is also the reason why Euratom does not have an exit clause. Because the longer Euratom lasts the more fissile material will come in Community control and the more the democratic imperative of the European people will manifest itself against the Machiavellian distortions of democracy caused by the Brussels elite.
True democracy is based on God-given supranational values like honesty, fairness and justice and truth. There is no limit to such values, or to the time required for humans to reclaim them.
The Euratom treaty has no exit clause. Article 208 explains why.
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Author : democracy
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The EU’s founder, Robert Schuman, at the time of the Soviet A-bomb detonation in 1949, conceived a plan to make nuclear war “not only unthinkable but materially impossible.” A decade later the European Atomic Energy Community or Euratom was born.
What is the reaction of the European Atomic Energy industries to the UK Brexit referendum? The European Commission refuses to give a clear idea of the repercussions of a BREXIT leave vote. The Lisbon Treaties define the European Union. The European Atomic Energy Community which has practically the same institutions is defined by one of the treaties of Rome, 1957.
What will happen if the UK voters elect to leave the European Union on 23 June 2016? Are the industries themselves working on the basis that the UK will remain a full member of the European Atomic Energy Community with all the privileges and duties so appertaining?
I have been unable to elicit an adequate reply so far from the main Forum on Atomic matters, ForAtom. Why? A multi-billion industry is at stake! Nuclear produces 27 percent of the EU’s electricity. The industrialists, it seems, do not wish to raise their heads above the parapet. Brexit is such a controversial topic, it will shake the whole of Europe.
The UK referendum question does not include membership of Euratom. In Rome in 1957 Western European Governments signed two treaties. One treaty of Rome was for the Economic Community, EEC. The EEC has since been expanded into the European Union. The second Rome Treaty was for the European Atomic Energy Community, Euratom. It remains separate and intact except for minor changes. The two are connected only by protocols.
UK electricity production
The UK Government has announced the EU referendum procedure with the question confirmed as being
“Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union?”
I posed some more questions to Foratom:
-
What is the nuclear industry’s position on the possible UK exit of the European Union, based as it is on the Lisbon Treaties.
-
What are the repercussions of leaving the EU?
-
Does it affect UK’s membership of Euratom (European Atomic Energy Community)?
“We maintain a neutral stance when it comes to the possible UK exit of the EU.
As far as your question regarding the impact of the Brexit on UK’s membership of Euratom is concerned, Art. 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) is the only provision regulating the exit of a Member State from the European Union. It refers to “The treaties” (§3). Therefore, our understanding is that if a Member State decides to leave the EU, it must withdraw from all the Treaties (TEU, TFEU and Euratom). However, the UK may want to negotiate to remain a member (or any other kind of association) of part or all of some of the policies like the internal market, fisheries, competition law and why not Euratom.”
That sounds like a spoon-fed answer from the European Commission. Is this true?
No. The idea that Euratom is included in the exit clause of the Lisbon Treaties is false.
Article 50 deals with the TWO Treaties of Lisbon. They are called the Treaty on the European Union, TEU and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, TFEU. The TEU AND TFEU are referred to in Article 48 as “the treaties”. Art 48 is the context for ‘treaties’ of art 50. No other treaties are mentioned here.
The Euratom treaty is not mentioned in all the articles of TEU or the TFEU. There is no reason or legal permission for including Euratom in any part of article 50 or the text of TEU or TFEU.
On the other hand, the Council of Europe and the Convention of Human Rights etc, and NATO are mentioned in the Lisbon Treaties’ articles.
There is more logic in including NATO and Council of Europe than the Euratom treaty within the ambit of Article 50. Does this mean that all these treaties must be rescinded too? Is that what the Commission is also getting at? Obviously not. It has no authority to even mention NATO’s Treaty of Washington or the London Statute of the Council of Europe. The EU has no say-so over their memberships.
Euratom is only mentioned in protocols — one of which merely re-affirms Euratom’s existing privileges, Protocol 7. The signatories agreed also that Protocol 35 about the Constitution of Ireland should be attached to both Euratom and Lisbon treaties separately. Hence it is clear from this instruction by government ministers that the Euratom Treaty was treated separately and as a distinct entity from the Lisbon treaties.
Both these protocols –the one on privileges and the other on the Irish Constitution — indicate that Euratom must be treated as a quite separate treaty. The NATO Treaty would more arguably than Euratom be included within the ambit of the exit clause of Article 50, because it is referred to by name. Obviously neither are included.
What happens if, in spite of this evidence, the European Commission insists that UK must leave Euratom? The European Commission would be deciding for itself that a LEAVE EU vote meant that UK must also leave Euratom. That seems to be in total contradiction with the legal facts. It would open up a great, long legal dispute at the Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
Would the Atomic Energy industry agree to closing down all the duties and privileges, finance and funding, legal and regulatory powers implicit in the British membership of Euratom on the basis of this dubious logic that it is included in Lisbon treaty’s article 50? What happens to the Community ownership of fissile material? What happens to Euratom agencies and establishments? What would be the future for JET, the Joint European Torus, that produced clean fusion energy and could help solve Europe’s energy dependencies?
The Euratom treaty for good reasons of nuclear security does not have the equivalent of an exit clause. That is related to the twin concepts at the heart of Euratom.
Firstly it is designed to encourage the peaceful uses of atomic energy. That implies that it should discourage the non-peaceful, warlike uses of atomic bombs. Euratom is essentially a non-proliferation treaty, although politicians fail to act on its potentialities. The atomic bombs are not themselves the major problem. No more than Howitzers or blunderbusses, airplanes or satellites. A computer hacker can arguably cause more harm and damage than a bomb. Should computers be banned? The issue that will render blunderbusses and nuclear bombs, chemical and bacterial weapons peaceful is true Democratic control. Canada armed with all these weapons is no threat to world peace. Neither is Switzerland. Why? Because of democratic control.
Iran on the other hand is a gigantic threat to world peace. Why? It does not have a peaceful ideology, nor democratic control. It wants to wipe out Israel and conquer the world for a Shi’ite Mahdi, its own version of a warlike Messiah. Ayatollah Khomeini declared: “we will stand against the whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all {unbelievers}.” The instigators of the Pakistani nuclear bomb declared their ultimate goal as an Islamic Atomic Bomb.
The second key aspect of the Euratom treaty that helps insure peace is the article 86. This says that all fissile (that is nuclear) materials designated inside the treaty are Community property.
That is the ultimate way of controlling the atomic bomb. No one nation has a monopoly of the dangerous bomb material. If any one Member State of the Euratom Community turned to dictatorship and decided it wanted to wage war on a neighbor, it would find the procedure difficult. It would only be able to produce a few bombs and all its neighbours combined would be able to vastly compete with it to restore democracy.
That is why the UK referendum should be about Democracy not some obscure economic issues everyone has forgotten about. It is also the reason why Euratom does not have an exit clause. Because the longer Euratom lasts the more fissile material will come in Community control and the more the democratic imperative of the European people will manifest itself against the Machiavellian distortions of democracy caused by the Brussels elite.
True democracy is based on God-given supranational values like honesty, fairness and justice and truth. There is no limit to such values, or to the time required for humans to reclaim them.
The Euratom treaty has no exit clause. Article 208 explains why.
“This Treaty is concluded for an unlimited period.”
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