The New Media Journal | Secret EU Plans to Become New Global Power Revealed

The New Media Journal | Secret EU Plans to Become New Global Power Revealed: "The European Union has drawn up secret plans to establish itself as a global power in its own right with the authority to sign international agreements on behalf of member states.

Confidential negotiations on how to implement the Lisbon Treaty have produced proposals to allow the EU to negotiate treaties and even open embassies across the world.

According to one confidential paper, the first pilot ''embassies'' are planned in New York, Kabul and Addis Ababa.

A letter conferring a full ''legal personality'' for the EU has been drafted in order for a new European diplomatic service to be recognised as fully fledged negotiators by international bodies and all non-EU countries.

The move is highly symbolic in Britain as it formally scraps the European Community, the organisation that Britons originally voted to join in the country's only referendum on Europe 34 years ago.

Mark Francois, Conservative spokesman on Europe, said the plan showed why the British should have been given a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. ''As we have long warned, the Lisbon Treaty increases the EU's power at the expense of the countries of Europe,'' he said.

The decision, taken shortly before Ireland's referendum last week, will mean a new European diplomatic service with more than 160 ''EU representations'' and ambassadors across the world."