William Hague on top form

From The Telegraph:

[William Hague] also pledges new action against any moves to use the Lisbon Treaty to end national vetoes in key areas of policy in favour of “qualified majority voting” (QMV).

“If, for instance, Europe were ever to decide that foreign policy is no longer by unanimity but by majority voting, that would constitute, to us, the transfer of a new competence and power to the EU, and that would trigger a referendum. So we are very serious about the referendum lock and defining that carefully in law.”

He's being rather disingenous here, because foreign policy decisions can already be taken by majority voting in the Council [i.e. Council of Ministers], with the fallback that "for vital and stated reasons of national policy" the representative of a member state can try and stop a vote being taken and get the decision referred up to the European Council.

See Article 31(2) of the TEU. I can't give you a page number, as they have published the TEU and the much longer TFEU as one long pdf file without page numbers to make things more difficult to find. But Article 31(3) then says that The European Council [Which means Rompuy plus Barroso plus heads of all member states] can allow the Council of Ministers to act by majority voting anyway...

2 ... the Council shall act by qualified majority:
- when adopting a decision defining a Union action or position on the basis of a decision of the European Council relating to the Union's strategic interests and objectives, as referred to in Article 22(1),
- when adopting a decision defining a Union action or position, on a proposal which the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy has presented following a specific request from the European Council, made on its own initiative or that of the High Representative,
- when adopting any decision implementing a decision defining a Union action or position,
- when appointing a special representative in accordance with Article 33.

If a member of the Council declares that, for vital and stated reasons of national policy, it intends to oppose the adoption of a decision to be taken by qualified majority, a vote shall not be taken. The High Representative will, in close consultation with the Member State involved, search for a solution acceptable to it. If he does not succeed, the Council may, acting by a qualified majority, request that the matter be referred to the European Council for a decision by unanimity.

3. The European Council may unanimously adopt a decision stipulating that the Council shall act by a qualified majority in cases other than those referred to in paragraph 2.

From an email by Denis Cooper.