{{European Union|class=B|importance=high}} <center> Date of the ratings? Is the article getting better, little by little? Hope so:-) [[User:Wiki-vr|wiki-vr]] </center>

==Citation==

Upss, [[User:JLogan|JLogan]] "missing citations and/or footnotes"... http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Reform+Treaty%22 ... gets some 9.800 [1] hits as of today. What to do? Can you help?<br>–[[User:Wiki-vr|wiki-vr]] 12:27, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

:Sure, though first, what are the sources of the current article? - ''[[User:JLogan|<span style="color:#000066">J Logan</span>]] ^{[[User talk:JLogan|<span style="color:#990033">t</span>]]}/_{[[Special:Contributions/JLogan|<span style="color:#006633">c</span>]]}'': 12:49, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

See links/references – ok with you? [[User:Wiki-vr|wiki-vr]] 12:27, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

:I'll take the tag down but perhaps we could get more of it inline. This data will change fast and we need to know what's from where. Refs at the bottom aren't reliable. - ''[[User:JLogan|<span style="color:#000066">J Logan</span>]] ^{[[User talk:JLogan|<span style="color:#990033">t</span>]]}/_{[[Special:Contributions/JLogan|<span style="color:#006633">c</span>]]}'': 12:53, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

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| [1]&nbsp; || up to 44.800 hits today :-) [[User:Wiki-vr|wiki-vr]] 10:41, 23 June 2007 (UTC)<br>...and 353.000 today, perhaps you may consider some of them as reliable :-) [[User:Wiki-vr|wiki-vr]] 10:46, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

|}

==Section needs serious work==

This section -

"The reform treaty has been greeted with great controversy in the United Kingdom[15]. Once concern is that Tony Blair, who will leave office within a matter of days after attending the EU summit on the Reform Treaty, will lock his successor, Gordon Brown into an agreement which will ceded sovereignty to the EU, and Brown will be unable to change it. Furthermore, in Labour's election manifesto, they had promised a referendum over the constitution, large parts of which are still contained in the treaty, as admitted by even the German Chancellor. In response, Mr Blair, and initially Mr Brown, claimed that the treaty would not require a referendum so long as certain 'red lines' were not crossed; i.e., that Britain continued to retain her vetoes over collective foreign policy, common law (so the Charter of Fundamental Rights would be without legal effect) and social security and tax laws[16]. While Mr Blair claimed to have reached this compromise, doubt was thrown over the legal efficacy of his foreign policy opt-out, especially since the EU retained an extensive array of diplomatic machinery[17]. Of even greater concern to many was the French demand that the words "undistorted competition" be deleted from the EU constitution's objectives, which might lead to the re-growth of state-protected inefficient industries that the EU had previously stood firmly against. Furthermore, little action was taken to curb what many in Britain consider the sprawling bureaucracy of the EU's civil service, whose books have not been signed by auditors for nine years."

needs some serious work. It's badly written - "an agreement which will ceded sovereignty" etc - and many points don't make a great deal of sense or need to be clarified (the point about diplomatic machinery negating the foreign policy veto for example). Moreover, without wishing to offend anyone, it's obviously been written by a Eurosceptic, which is fine in itself, but I fear that this particular author has failed to adhere to objective standards. As a rule, if you can guess the political persuasion of the author of a particular section, then it needs some work on objectivity.

: I apologise for the bias in there and the sentences which may be difficult to interpret, I'll take a look at those right away. I'm afraid that when I came across this article I felt that the was a need for a counter-opinion to all the positivity towards the European Union and this new treaty which is embedded throughout the article. I did work in some sources there if anyone outside the UK was unsure of the factual accuracy of the section. [[User:Roberdin|Roberdin]] 17:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

== There is now a draft treaty ==

The draft treaty can be found at:

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/cms3_fo/showPage.asp?id=1317&lang=en&mode=g

The presidency conclusions of the European Council (of June 22 and 23) can be found at:

http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/ec/94932.pdf

== sources ==

How can so obviously polemic sources like "George Pascoe-Watson (June 22, 2007). EU can't mention the war. The Sun. Retrieved on 2007-06-26." [http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2007280890,00.html] been used for citation in wikipedia? By the way the article incluedes flase informations. Germany has 82,5 million inhabitants- not 88. The word choice makes it obviously that the author don't like Germany and that he is a non neutral observer.[[User:84.181.86.56|84.181.86.56]] 05:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

== Neutrality in section regarding Poland ==

I do see several problems with the initial sentence of this section: "The German-backed attempt to redistribute voting weights has been the main article of controversy for Poland."

First, this is not only a "German-backed attempt", but the agreement found by 26 EU member states, but Poland.

Second, just stating "to redistribute voting weights" would leave the impression of an arbitrary change. Instead the voting will now be based on the true size of population (the vote for each EU citizen should be of equivalent weight), whereas the previous weighting was disproportionately favoring some countries without proper respect of the size of their population.

Any suggestions for a better wording? - Cheers, [[User:Michael Zimmermann|MikeZ]] 08:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

:I have tried something, but I am not wholly happy. The English section also needs major rephrasing. In fact, I believe the whole "controversy" section could be reoved as in its current form it in fact lowers the quality of the article...[[User:CyrilleDunant|CyrilleDunant]] 09:59, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

::The Polish section seems to be lacking somewhat on the German-Polish relationship in aftermath of the Merkel agreement.[http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,490795,00.html][http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/07/europe/EU-POL-Poland-EU-Treaty.php] [[User:Intangible2.0|Intangible2.0]] 12:30, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

:I cannot speak for the rest of Europe, but in the UK, this treaty has been extremely controversial; indeed, more headlines have emerged about it today. I would be surprised if it is ratified by anything more than the narrowest of margins. Many people who visit this article will be interested in what effect this treaty will have on the people who reside within the EU member countries, and what those people are saying about the treaty. I admit, I speak as a Eurosceptic, but I believe that removing that section would do a disservice to the neutrality of the article. [[User:Roberdin|Roberdin]] 16:31, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

== Quotefarm ==

Simply put, the quotations section is a quotefarm. That is bad, and most of the content should be moved to [[wikiquote:Reform Treaty]]. I do not have an account there (and never edited Wikiquote), but I will see what I can do if no regular quotation-gatherers watch this page. --[[User:Krator]] ([[User talk:Krator|t]] [[Special:Contributions/Krator|c]]) 00:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

:I agree, unless they can be intergrated into the text they should be moved to Wikiquote - ''[[User:JLogan|<span style="color:#000066">J Logan</span>]] ^{[[User talk:JLogan|<span style="color:#990033">t</span>]]}/_{[[Special:Contributions/JLogan|<span style="color:#006633">c</span>]]}'': 08:53, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

::I think the quote section tries to point out how politicians in various countries on one hand talk about a complete new deal, while others talk about it being the same as the old constitution. This in itself needs mentioning, but I'm not sure if one needs quotes for that. [[User:Intangible2.0|Intangible2.0]] 12:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

== Voting table ==

Some concerns on this table:

*It is too large. It needs to be trimmed down to a few representative countries, at least including Germany, Poland (dispute between them) and the UK (this is the English wiki). Choose 5-10 other countries based on size for comparison between systems. Move the big table to a separate article, perhaps [[European Council]].

*It is horrendously formatted. Switch to neat HTML (without <nowiki><hr></nowiki>, using lowercase CSS and properly closing <nowiki><br></nowiki>) or wiki markup.

*It is not explaining much, because it uses terms not explained in the article. What is a "Share in the blocking minority", and what is the "qualified majority" at the bottom? Why do the percentages sometimes add up to more than 100%?

--[[User:Krator]] ([[User talk:Krator|t]] [[Special:Contributions/Krator|c]]) 16:17, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

:I think it belongs on the [[Qualified majority voting]] article, not here. It is a detail of a dispute during the negotiations of the reform treaty, we can explain in short what it is about, but we have articles like [[Qualified majority voting]] to explain details. [[User:Maartenvdbent|Maarten]] 17:10, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

:This simplified square root is something Blonde (the old table was from his webpage) proposed himself AFAIK. I removed it. Also it is imperative to include ALL counties in a table about voting mechanisms.

:If necessary please include the blocking share in the '''wikified''' table! I think these columns aren't necessary because of the explanation above the table.

:Tools for this are eg [http://area23.brightbyte.de/csv2wp.php]--[[User:84.163.126.80|84.163.126.80]] 18:55, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The current wikimarkup table is an improvement over the HTML one. Still, information needs to be moved to a more detailed article. --[[User:Krator]] ([[User talk:Krator|t]] [[Special:Contributions/Krator|c]]) 21:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

== Quotes relating to the UK ==

I think that the long quotes regarding amendments to the Charter and the paragraph that speaks on deletion of "where competition is free and undistorted" are redundant to what is in the article already (by the way currently it makes it sound that the deletion of "free and undistorted" is a change from the old treaties, which it is not, it is a change from the old draft language for the new treaty). Especially the quoted language of the UK opt-out does not give any new information, rather oddly gives a special focus on the UK. [[User:Themanwithoutapast|Themanwithoutapast]] 18:35, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

:This is the '''English''' Wikipedia! A special focus on the UK is desirable.

::Not it is not. The UK isn't the only English-speaking country, and this is an encyclopaedia for the benefit of all, not just the UK. Redundant (and POV) info should be removed. [[User:Rossenglish|Rossenglish]] 21:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I am less certain that this was ever a serious issue in the UK (indeed no source was quoted). There are numerous other references to competition; this was a purely ornamental matter. I would remove this part of the article to leave room for more text on the substantive debates.[[User:Dubitante|Dubitante]] 16:53, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

== "Commission to Parliament power-transfer" ==

"Commission to Parliament power-transfer — The directly elected European Parliament gains power and the European Commission (chosen by national leaders) loses power and importance." What's the source for this? I can't find anything on the Commission ''loosing'' power and that title suggests powers are moving from the Commission to Parliament. Where is this said?

On a general note, if we can get more citations on the facts here, we wouldn't be far off getting this up to GA which I think ought to be a priority. - ''[[User:JLogan|J Logan]] ^{[[User talk:JLogan|t]]}'': 10:42, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

:I think that's nonsense too. Why would the Commission lose power? [[User:Maartenvdbent|Maarten]] 10:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

:[[User:Ssolbergj]] wrote it, so you should ask him. A click on [[European Parliament]] gave some answers (which i copied into the article). Loosing power sounds a litte exaggerated but it seems there are many areas where the commission and council cannot decide without parliament anymore. This could be called loss of power for commission and council...

:PS: We really need a list of policy areas which will fall under QMV.

:I also think that we should create an section about special arrangements (opt-out,opt-in, ...) for the member states to clean up the content section (see "Charter of Fundamental Rights").

:--[[User:Fred Stober|Fred Stober]] 13:06, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

::I disagree. Some directives and regulations that were decided upon by the Council alone, or with only consultation or assent of the Parliament, will become part of the normal law making procedure, which means Parliament and Council share the same powers (both can reject or amend a proposal of the Commission). So you could say that the ''Council'' must share its powers more often with the Parliament (and thus loses some power, though I find that wording a bit exaggerated), but the Commission only initiates laws and presents it to the Parliament and Council, who vote in favor or against the Commission's proposals. A different balance between the powers of the Parliament and the Council doesn't affect in any way the powers of the Commission, does it? [[User:Maartenvdbent|Maarten]] 21:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

:::If you read what I put into the article you will find that I didn't wrote there that the commission "looses" power and even deleted it from the article. Like I wrote above: I think it "sounds a litte exaggerated". BUT from a pedantic :) standpoint: The commission will have to take parliament into account when it initiates a law in the future. The number of all possible laws which could be initiated by the commission and passed by the council alone is less than the number of all possible laws which could be initiated by the commission and passed by the council and parliament. Personally i don't think this is relevant (that's why i deleted it from the article) but i understand why someone might be tempted to call the loss of options for the commission loss of power... I hope you understand my position.

:::PS: Was your "I disagree" also directed at my last two points? --[[User:Fred Stober|Fred Stober]] 23:25, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

::::No, it was not directed at your last two points :). I only wanted to make the point that when the Council has to share more power with the Parliament, it doesn't affect the powers of the Commission. But I see that isn't in the article anymore, so there is no point of contention :). A section about when to apply QMV is very relevant, but I think it should also list which of the special law making procedures (see [[European Union legislative procedure]]) should be applied in certain policy areas. [[User:Maartenvdbent|Maarten]] 10:05, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

== Charter of Fundamental Rights ==

This section needs some work. There is a lot of discussion if these provisions are actually worth something, or not. The European Scrutiny Commission found that the current text of the provision is possibly inconsistent.[http://politics.guardian.co.uk/eu/story/0,,2187321,00.html] [[User:Intangible2.0|Intangible2.0]] 20:16, 13 October 2007 (UTC)