http://www.heritage.org/Research/Europe/tst12152009a.cfm (http://www.heritage.org/Research/Europe/tst12152009a.cfm)
Quoteby Sally McNamara
Testimony before the
Committee on the Foreign Affairs,
Subcommittee on Europe,
of the United States House of Representatives
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Negative Foreign Policy Implications for the United States
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The Lisbon Treaty's ability to rein in its members from taking independent action should also concern Washington. Under the Lisbon Treaty, EU member states are now required to consult the other members before undertaking international action and to ensure that their decisions are in line with EU interests.[8] Giving the EU the ability to supersede the autonomy of its member states in areas of foreign policy--such as the decision to join the United States in military action--will seriously impair the ability of America's allies in Europe to stand alongside the United States where and when they choose to do so. It will see America isolated and facing hostility from an organization which is designed to serve as a counterweight to American "hyperpower."[9]
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A Threat to the Anglo-American Special Relationship
The institutional and political constraints imposed by the Lisbon Treaty will severely limit Britain's ability to build international alliances and independently determine its foreign policy. The biggest damage would be done to Britain's enduring alliance with the United States.
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Conclusion
Europe doesn't need a constitution. The European Union is not the United States of Europe. The EU is a grouping of 27 nation-states, each with its own culture, language, heritage, and national interests. The EU works best as an economic market that facilitates the free movement of goods, services, and people. It is far less successful as a political entity that tries to force its member states to conform to an artificial common identity. The Lisbon Treaty will bring Europe much closer to the French vision of a protected, integrated European Union than the British vision of a free-trading, intergovernmental Europe. It will do huge damage to American interests in Europe; and contrary to any democratic tradition it is a self-amending treaty which can aggrandize power not explicitly conferred on it by the Treaties. As Lady Thatcher states in her seminal book Statecraft: "That such an unnecessary and irrational project as building a European superstate was ever embarked upon will seem in future years to be perhaps the greatest folly of the modern era."