euro|topics - Luís Menezes Leitão

01/12/2008

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Menezes Leitão, Luís

2 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.

Público - Portugal | 13/03/2008

Europe remains a political dwarf

Luís Menezes Leitão would like to see the same interest in the next European elections that we are witnessing for the American campaign. "There is a striking contrast between the vitality of American democracy and the way the most important decision are taken in Europe behind the backs of citizens, as exemplified with the Lisbon Treaty. ... We already have a Federal State in Europe, but the democratic process in the choice of governors chose the deep rift between European citizens and institution. Although the European Parliament is elected by universal suffrage, its election tends to be seen as an internal affair. ... What should be decisive in the democratic debate, i.e. which candidates from the various European parties preside over the European Commission, and what they propose for Europe is totally unknown. Europe cannot continue to be both an economic giant and a political dwarf".

Público - Portugal | 09/01/2008

The Portuguese will not be voting on the European Treaty

"The National pride with which the country carried out the Portuguese presidency of the EU lead to the absence of debate around the consequences of the Lisbon Treaty", considers Luís Menezes Leitão, a lawyer and university professor at the law faculty of the University of Lisbon (FDL). "The following question arises today: can you justify the fact that such an important step in European integration is to be taken on the basis of mere parliamentary ratifications, independently of European population ? If this is the case, the words of Thucydide that were quoted in the opening of the initial European Constitution prove rather ironic ('Our constitution ... has received the name of democracy, because democracy is the power of the greatest number and not that of a minority'). In today's Europe, power is in the hands of a minority and there is no desire to pass it on to the majority of citizens."

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