The calculations posted here and elsewhere are based on the assumption that the device uses standard transverse electro-magnetic waves for the energy transport. In principle, it could also be possible to use longitudinal electric waves, even though this is generally assumed to be impossible, because it is assumed there are no free charge carriers in vacuum that could support longitudinal electric waves.

However, the Maxwell equations are based on Faradays experiments and while Faraday was a physicist, Maxwell was a mathematician. Maxwell postulated the concept of charge carriers as causing the electro-magnetic field, while at the present day it is known that EM waves cause matter to exist and not the other way around. So, one can certainly not rule out the possibility that longitudinal electric waves are possible after all.

This is exactly what the German Professor Meyl points out:
http://www.k-meyl.de/go/60_Primaerliteratur/Scalar-Waves.pdf
http://www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/3545-konstantin-meyl-scalar-faraday-vs-maxwell.html

According to Meyl, one can achieve a very thight coupling between transmitter and reciever and achieve almost 100% efficiency in the transmission of energy.

This means that if this thing works, one will have consider the existence of longitudinal waves a very serious possibility.

s/dark matter of black energy/dark matter OR black energy/

Well, maybe "any postulate at all" was a bit too much.

However, if you describe matter and fields using rotating vortexes, you get very good results without needing to postulate the dark matter of black energy astronomers are looking for. Everything appears to natually fall into place, from the very small to the very big.

Ok. Let's go trough them again.

1. No problem.

2. You're right, I referred to a web forum I happen to like, that refers to the actual content I intended to point to. Maybe not the smartest choice, but that's what I did.

The guy we're talking about here, Prof. Meyl, teaches the subjects power electronics and alternative energy technology at the University of Applied Sciences in Furtwangen. This is his homepage: http://www.meyl.eu/

This is a paper where he discusses scalar waves and what's wrong with the Maxwell equations we use:
http://www.k-meyl.de/go/60_Primaerliteratur/scalar_wave-effects.pdf

I have read it, it makes sense to me and is well written and thought trough.

3. This is the English version of the "complete work on energy-conversion" by Prof. Turtur at the University of Braunschweig/Wolfenbuettel. Here is more of his work, with at the bottom a list of publications:
http://public.rz.fh-wolfenbuettel.de/~turtur/physik/

So, he published more than just this, on more sites.

Beside that, I don't care that much about where I find a document, I care more about wether or not it makes sense to me.

4. After studying some of the work of Meyl and Bearden, I came to the conclusion that both of them are right about the Maxwell equations being incomplete. And it may be that this is not a site you might call thrustworthy at first sight, but then again: don't shoot the messenger.

5. I actually think this is a very good paper, but hard to understand when you're new to the subject, because there's a lot of stuff in there that you will need to look up, like f.e. "Heaviside component".

All in all, to me, these are sources that offer a lot of insight into the subject, but you will have to be prepared to really read a few of the papers trough and draw your own conclusions about what these guys actually say. You might be surprised by what you read.

As an introduction, the video presentation by prof Meyl as referred by the energetic forum might be a good start. It doesn't take a lot of time, but you still get an idea about what these guys are talking about.

Let me say a littlebit more about vortexes, because it is quite significant in understanding the universe, from the very large to the very small.

Consider the big bang theory. It basically says the whole universe is expanding. You probably know the picture of a guy blowing up a balloon, where some pennies are stitched on, to illustrate the expanding universe.

Now if you look at the textbooks, you'll find a lot of equations, but you'll find none describing the guy blowing up the balloon. Now wasn't there a "law" which says "action equals minus reaction"?

So, if we have a whole universe expanding, shouldn't there be something contracting???

What happens in the textbooks, is that something is postulated: "black matter".

However, if you look in the universe, you'll find a black hole at the center of every galaxy. You'll find huge vortexes, sometimes millions of light years long, originating at those black holes.

If you compare these with vortexes, like for example hurricanes, you'll see that in the center of a vortex, there's a "silent" area, that might very well be very similar to a black hole.

So, actually, it makes a lot of sense to describe the universe using vortexes. And that is what Prof. Meyl has done.

Now what a remarkable result of "pseudo science" that his theory can do without the postulate of "dark matter", or any postulate at all, isn't it?

There is a difference between just using "cool words" and using them in such a way that they actually mean something.

It's easy to just yell the things you do and call something "pseudo-science", whithout actually having read let alone understood the articles referenced here, given the time between my post and yours. It's much more difficult to actually read stuff like this, think for yourself and decide on the basis of what you read wether or not you're reading bullshit.

"Even if you're a minority of one, the truth is still the truth" - Mahatma Ghandi.

Unlike most people, I have studied the subject of "free energy" quite substantially the past 2 years or so, and since I know quite a bit about the field, it is astonishing to read that people simply disgard the possibility of finding a clean, endless energy source because of "the laws of thermodynamics forbid perpetuum mobile". Yes, you can't create energy out of nothing, but that does not mean there aren't any energy sources that are free for the taking.

As a matter of fact, it has been known for more then a hundred years that in principle we can tap all the (electrical) energy we need out of the environment, or the vacuum, to be more precise. You see, mankind has known about a free energy source ever since JP Morgan financially crushed the great Nikola Tesla, who already wrote in 1892 (!):
http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1892-02-03.htm

"We shall have no need to transmit power at all. Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason; it has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antheus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kineticÃf"and this we know it is, for certainÃf"then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature."

It turns out that the basic theory our electrical engineers work with, the Maxwell equations, have been deliberately curtailed such that they won't allow "over-unity" devices nor the so-called "scalar waves" or longitudinal waves, which can be both electrical or magnetic.

Today, the German Professor Konstantin Meyl shows some remarkable experiments, based on a.o. Tesla's "magnifying transmitter", which show that scalar waves *do* exist and are much more effective then Herzian type of electro-magnetic waves:
http://www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/3545-konstantin-meyl-scalar-faraday-vs-maxwell.html

He also explains that the currently used Maxwell equations are actually a special case of his complete theory, based on vortexes. His theory can do without postulates like "black matter" and the like and also allows over-unity devices operating with scalar waves. Very interesting videos...

Another interesting researcher is Professor Claus Turtur, who a.o. calculated the energy density of the vacuum in his paper "Verification and Conversion of the Energy of the Zero-point Oscillations of the Vacuum" to be about 1 * 10^29 J/m3:
http://www.wbabin.net/physics/turtur1e.pdf

That's an awful lot of energy present in every qubic meter of space! If we can only retrieve a fraction thereof, we have all the energy we need.
Now that does not mean it's easy to do, but it's certainly waaaay to short around the corner to call this "impossible", "foolish" or anything like that.

Furthermore, Thomas Bearden shows how and why the Maxwell equations have been deliberately curtailed in order *not* to allow over-unity devices:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Site:LRP:The_Deliberate_Curtailment_of_Nikola_Tesla's_Primary_Energy_Source

"Tom Bearden and Leslie R. Pastor discuss how the present electrical engineering model (and practice) was severely curtailed to exclude overunity (COP>1.0) electrical power systems that take their excess electromagnetic energy directly from their interaction with the active medium (vacuum/spacetime). "

"The purpose of this paper is to reveal the iron suppression of Tesla and his dream of giving the world free electrical energy extracted directly from the active medium (the active vacuum/spacetime itself). The electrical engineering model taught and studied in all our universities, beginning in the 1890s, was also ruthlessly curtailed to cast out all asymmetric Maxwellian systems and to also discard HeavisideÃf(TM)s odd and nearly incredible giant curled EM energy flow component actually accompanying every far more feeble Poynting energy flow in every EM system or circuit. Following the decimation of Tesla around the turn of the century, similar tactics have continued against follow-on inventors who discovered overunity systems and attempted to complete them and bring them to market. The suppression continues to this day, as can be attested by several living overunity inventors and inventor groups. For more than a century there has indeed been a giant, unwritten conspiracy of some of the most powerful cartels on earth, to continue the curtailment of the electrical engineering model and practice, and to continue to suppress overunity inventions and inventors."

Also see one of Beardens articles:
http://www.cheniere.org/articles/How%20an%20EM%20circuit%20powers%20its%20load%20--%20and%20solving%20the%20world%20energy%20crisis1-1b.pdf

"I hope you are beginning to see just how archaic and erroneous the present day electrical engineering model and practice -- and power systems -- are. We are still applying a hoary old physics of the 1880s, that has not been modernized by anything that has happened in the entire rise of modern physics from the discovery of the electron forward. And this is REALLY the problem generating the world's energy crisis -- the arbitrarily symmetrized EM model and systems.
To show how easy it is to evoke a continuous and steady flow of EM energy that will last forever, simply lay an electret across a permanent magnet so that the E-field of the electret is at right angles to the H-field of the magnet. Then by every EM textbook in every EE department in every university, that silly two dollar gadget will sit there and freely pour out a real Poynting energy flow S, given by the simple equation S = EXH (constants of proportionality neglected). Now of course that accounts the DIVERGED component of the flow, but it does not account the also-present giant Heaviside curled EM energy flow, which is several trillion times greater in magnitude as S. And we ourselves do not have to consume any fuel or furnish any further energy to that silly gadget, once it is simply assembled.

So there is no problem at all in evoking a "free and unending EM energy wind" anywhere in the universe, quickly and easily and for peanuts, that will also flow freely until the end of time.

Thus the only "energy" problem is how to build a proper "EM energy windmill" to sit there independently in that flowing wind, divert and collect a bit of that free energy wind and collect the energy, and then dissipate that collected EM energy SEPARATELY in the loads to power them.

You see, that type of EM system is a priori an ASYMMETRIC Maxwellian system. And our EEs can only think, produce, and deploy a SELF-SYMMETRIZING system that uses half the "collected" energy to do nothing but destroy the source of the wind itself -- the internal source dipole inside the generator."

For a more in depth paper see: http://www.cheniere.org/techpapers/bearden4.pdf

"We present new concepts which provide usable extraction of electromagnetic energy from the vacuum, and appear to be present but previously unrecognized in all electrical power systems. We argue that generators and batteries do not use their available internal energy to power their external circuits, but dissipate it to separate their internal charges to produce source dipoles as negative resistors. Once formed, the source dipole receives and transduces EM energy flow from the vacuum {2}, and pours it out along the attached circuit, filling all surrounding space {3}. EM circuits and loads have always been powered by vacuum-provided EM energy. They are not powered by the energy the operator inputs to the generator shaft, nor by the chemical energy available in the battery. A tiny fraction - "the Poynting {4} component - "of the huge energy flow transduced from the vacuum is intercepted and diverged into the circuit to power it. The huge remainder of the transduced vacuum energy flow - "which we call the Heaviside {5} {6} component" - misses the circuit entirely. It is not intercepted and is not diverged into the circuit. It is just wasted."

Oops. f***ed up the layout..

Too bad nobody seems to realise that we can our all the energy we need right out of the vacuum. The reason we don't do that is because we are being taught that that would be against the laws of thermodynamics, which isn't the case, and that has been known for over a hundred years, first of all by the mostly forgotten genious Nikola Tesla, as he wrote in 1892 (!): http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1892-02-03.htm [tfcbooks.com]

"We shall have no need to transmit power at all. Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason; it has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antheus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kineticÃ"and this we know it is, for certainÃ"then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature."

It turns out that the basic theory our electrical engineers work with, the Maxwell equations, have been deliberately curtailed such that they won't allow "over-unity" devices nor the so-called "scalar waves" or longitudinal waves, which can be both electrical or magnetic. The German Professor Konstantin Meyl shows some remarkable experiments, based on a.o. Tesla's "magnifying transmitter", which show that scalar waves *do* exist and are much more effective then Herzian type of electro-magnetic waves:
http://www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/3545-konstantin-meyl-scalar-faraday-vs-maxwell.html [energeticforum.com]

He also explains that the currently used Maxwell equations are actually a special case of his complete theory, based on vortexes. His theory can do without postulates like "black matter" and the like and also allows over-unity devices operating with scalar waves. Very interesting videos... Furthermore, Thomas Bearden comes to the same conclusion, and he shows how and why the Maxwell equations have been deliberately curtailed in order *not* to allow over-unity devices:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Site:LRP:The_Deliberate_Curtailment_of_Nikola_Tesla's_Primary_Energy_Source [peswiki.com]

"Tom Bearden and Leslie R. Pastor discuss how the present electrical engineering model (and practice) was severely curtailed to exclude overunity (COP>1.0) electrical power systems that take their excess electromagnetic energy directly from their interaction with the active medium (vacuum/spacetime). "

"The purpose of this paper is to reveal the iron suppression of Tesla and his dream of giving the world free electrical energy extracted directly from the active medium (the active vacuum/spacetime itself). The electrical engineering model taught and studied in all our universities, beginning in the 1890s, was also ruthlessly curtailed to cast out all asymmetric Maxwellian systems and to also discard HeavisideÃ(TM)s odd and nearly incredible giant curled EM energy flow component actually accompanying every far more feeble Poynting energy flow in every EM system or circuit. Following the decimation of Tesla around the turn of the century, similar tactics have continued against follow-on inventors who discovered overunity systems and attempted to complete them and bring them to market. The suppression continues to this day, as can be attested by several living overunity inventors and inventor groups. For more than a century there has indeed been a giant, unwritten conspiracy of some of the most powerful cartels on earth, to continue the curtailment of the electrical engineering model and practice, and to continue to suppress overunity inventions and inventors."

Also see one of Beardens articles: http://www.cheniere.org/articles/How%20an%20EM%20circuit%20powers%20its%20load%20--%20and%20solving%20the%20world%20energy%20crisis1-1b.pdf [cheniere.org]

"I hope you are beginning to see just how archaic and erroneous the present day electrical engineering model and practice -- and power systems -- are. We are still applying a hoary old physics of the 1880s, that has not been modernized by anything that has happened in the entire rise of modern physics from the discovery of the electron forward. And this is REALLY the problem generating the world's energy crisis -- the arbitrarily symmetrized EM model and systems. To show how easy it is to evoke a continuous and steady flow of EM energy that will last forever, simply lay an electret across a permanent magnet so that the E-field of the electret is at right angles to the H-field of the magnet. Then by every EM textbook in every EE department in every university, that silly two dollar gadget will sit there and freely pour out a real Poynting energy flow S, given by the simple equation S = EXH (constants of proportionality neglected). Now of course that accounts the DIVERGED component of the flow, but it does not account the also-present giant Heaviside curled EM energy flow, which is several trillion times greater in magnitude as S. And we ourselves do not have to consume any fuel or furnish any further energy to that silly gadget, once it is simply assembled.
So there is no problem at all in evoking a "free and unending EM energy wind" anywhere in the universe, quickly and easily and for peanuts, that will also flow freely until the end of time.
Thus the only "energy" problem is how to build a proper "EM energy windmill" to sit there independently in that flowing wind, divert and collect a bit of that free energy wind and collect the energy, and then dissipate that collected EM energy SEPARATELY in the loads to power them.
You see, that type of EM system is a priori an ASYMMETRIC Maxwellian system. And our EEs can only think, produce, and deploy a SELF-SYMMETRIZING system that uses half the "collected" energy to do nothing but destroy the source of the wind itself -- the internal source dipole inside the generator."

For a more in depth paper see: http://www.cheniere.org/techpapers/bearden4.pdf [cheniere.org]

"We present new concepts which provide usable extraction of electromagnetic energy from the vacuum, and appear to be present but previously unrecognized in all electrical power systems. We argue that generators and batteries do not use their available internal energy to power their external circuits, but dissipate it to separate their internal charges to produce source dipoles as negative resistors. Once formed, the source dipole receives and transduces EM energy flow from the vacuum {2}, and pours it out along the attached circuit, filling all surrounding space {3}. EM circuits and loads have always been powered by vacuum-provided EM energy. They are not powered by the energy the operator inputs to the generator shaft, nor by the chemical energy available in the battery. A tiny fractionÃ"the Poynting {4} componentÃ"of the huge energy flow transduced from the vacuum is intercepted and diverged into the circuit to power it. The huge remainder of the transduced vacuum energy flow Ã"which we call the Heaviside {5} {6} componentÃ"misses the circuit entirely. It is not intercepted and is not diverged into the circuit. It is just wasted."
-

Too bad nobody seems to realise that we can our all the energy we need right out of the vacuum. The reason we don't do that is because we are being taught that that would be against the laws of thermodynamics, which isn't the case, and that has been known for over a hundred years, first of all by the mostly forgotten genious Nikola Tesla, as he wrote in 1892 (!): http://www.tfcbooks.com/tesla/1892-02-03.htm "We shall have no need to transmit power at all. Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel. Men have been led to it long ago by instinct or reason; it has been expressed in many ways, and in many places, in the history of old and new. We find it in the delightful myth of Antheus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid mathematicians and in many hints and statements of thinkers of the present time. Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kineticâ"and this we know it is, for certainâ"then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature." It turns out that the basic theory our electrical engineers work with, the Maxwell equations, have been deliberately curtailed such that they won't allow "over-unity" devices nor the so-called "scalar waves" or longitudinal waves, which can be both electrical or magnetic. The German Professor Konstantin Meyl shows some remarkable experiments, based on a.o. Tesla's "magnifying transmitter", which show that scalar waves *do* exist and are much more effective then Herzian type of electro-magnetic waves: http://www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/3545-konstantin-meyl-scalar-faraday-vs-maxwell.html He also explains that the currently used Maxwell equations are actually a special case of his complete theory, based on vortexes. His theory can do without postulates like "black matter" and the like and also allows over-unity devices operating with scalar waves. Very interesting videos... Furthermore, Thomas Bearden comes to the same conclusion, and he shows how and why the Maxwell equations have been deliberately curtailed in order *not* to allow over-unity devices: http://peswiki.com/index.php/Site:LRP:The_Deliberate_Curtailment_of_Nikola_Tesla's_Primary_Energy_Source "Tom Bearden and Leslie R. Pastor discuss how the present electrical engineering model (and practice) was severely curtailed to exclude overunity (COP>1.0) electrical power systems that take their excess electromagnetic energy directly from their interaction with the active medium (vacuum/spacetime). " "The purpose of this paper is to reveal the iron suppression of Tesla and his dream of giving the world free electrical energy extracted directly from the active medium (the active vacuum/spacetime itself). The electrical engineering model taught and studied in all our universities, beginning in the 1890s, was also ruthlessly curtailed to cast out all asymmetric Maxwellian systems and to also discard Heavisideâ(TM)s odd and nearly incredible giant curled EM energy flow component actually accompanying every far more feeble Poynting energy flow in every EM system or circuit. Following the decimation of Tesla around the turn of the century, similar tactics have continued against follow-on inventors who discovered overunity systems and attempted to complete them and bring them to market. The suppression continues to this day, as can be attested by several living overunity inventors and inventor groups. For more than a century there has indeed been a giant, unwritten conspiracy of some of the most powerful cartels on earth, to continue the curtailment of the electrical engineering model and practice, and to continue to suppress overunity inventions and inventors." Also see one of Beardens articles: http://www.cheniere.org/articles/How%20an%20EM%20circuit%20powers%20its%20load%20--%20and%20solving%20the%20world%20energy%20crisis1-1b.pdf "I hope you are beginning to see just how archaic and erroneous the present day electrical engineering model and practice -- and power systems -- are. We are still applying a hoary old physics of the 1880s, that has not been modernized by anything that has happened in the entire rise of modern physics from the discovery of the electron forward. And this is REALLY the problem generating the world's energy crisis -- the arbitrarily symmetrized EM model and systems. To show how easy it is to evoke a continuous and steady flow of EM energy that will last forever, simply lay an electret across a permanent magnet so that the E-field of the electret is at right angles to the H-field of the magnet. Then by every EM textbook in every EE department in every university, that silly two dollar gadget will sit there and freely pour out a real Poynting energy flow S, given by the simple equation S = EXH (constants of proportionality neglected). Now of course that accounts the DIVERGED component of the flow, but it does not account the also-present giant Heaviside curled EM energy flow, which is several trillion times greater in magnitude as S. And we ourselves do not have to consume any fuel or furnish any further energy to that silly gadget, once it is simply assembledassembled assembledassembledassembledassembledassembled. So there is no problem at all in evoking a "free and unending EM energy wind" anywhere in the universe, quickly and easily and for peanuts, that will also flow freely until the end of time. Thus the only "energy" problem is how to build a proper "EM energy windmill" to sit there independently in that flowing wind, divert and collect a bit of that free energy wind and collect the energy, and then dissipate that collected EM energy SEPARATELY in the loads to power them. You see, that type of EM system is a priori an ASYMMETRIC Maxwellian system. And our EEs can only think, produce, and deploy a SELF-SYMMETRIZING system that uses half the "collected" energy to do nothing but destroy the source of the wind itself -- the internal source dipole inside the generator." For a more in depth paper see: http://www.cheniere.org/techpapers/bearden4.pdf "We present new concepts which provide usable extraction of electromagnetic energy from the vacuum, and appear to be present but previously unrecognized in all electrical power systems. We argue that generators and batteries do not use their available internal energy to power their external circuits, but dissipate it to separate their internal charges to produce source dipoles as negative resistors. Once formed, the source dipole receives and transduces EM energy flow from the vacuum {2}, and pours it out along the attached circuit, filling all surrounding space {3}. EM circuits and loads have always been powered by vacuum-provided EM energy. They are not powered by the energy the operator inputs to the generator shaft, nor by the chemical energy available in the battery. A tiny fractionâ"the Poynting {4} componentâ"of the huge energy flow transduced from the vacuum is intercepted and diverged into the circuit to power it. The huge remainder of the transduced vacuum energy flow â"which we call the Heaviside {5} {6} componentâ"misses the circuit entirely. It is not intercepted and is not diverged into the circuit. It is just wasted."

You guessed wrong. That is: the current treaties do not establish a legal supremacy of the EU above the memberstates. Heck, the EU not even has law-making powers. All it can do, is make directives, political agreements. Therefore, Sweden might have a political problem if it ignores the EU or even the European Court of Justice, but there really is nothing anyone can do about that using legal means. All the EU and the other memberstates can do is to use political pressure, which can be all kinds of things, but there is no legal way the EU can enforce the Swedish Government or its parliament to do anything. Not until the Lisbon treaty is ratified in all EU memberstates, that is.

So, the Lisbon Treaty is not about more democracy in Europe, it's really about correcting this tiny little "error": for the first time, Europe will have legal supremacy over the member states. See my previous post: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1247565&cid=28136179

Wrong!

The EU does not make laws, it makes directives! And there is no legal authority whatsoever that can legally enforce these directives to be implemented by the member states. All there really is, is a political obligation to do so. This means that if a member state refuses to implement a certain directive, that they may have a political problem, but there is no judge on the whole world that formally has the authority to force a member state or its parliament into obeying the decisions taken in the EU.

Oops, the 3d sentence should of course be: The EU does *not* make laws...

I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. The way the EU currently operates is as a *political* union. The EU does make laws, it makes "directives", which are basically *political* agreements amongst the member states. These *political* agreements are then subsequently "translated" into national law by national *politics* and only then become law.

At this moment, the EU has no legal authority over the member states. The "authority" it has is purely *political* and therefore the only means the EU has to force memberstates into compliance are *political* means, *not* legal means.

It may be so what I quoted does not one-to-one apply to Sweden, but the Dutch constitution also allows power to be transferred to international bodies. However, that does not imply that that already happened. The fact of the matter is that at this moment legal authority has *not* been transferred from the EU memberstates to the EU yet. And that is exactly why we "need" a "European Constitution" aka "Lisbon Treaty".

The most important change the Lisbon Treaty will bring, is *legal supremacy* of the EU over the member states as well as the establishment of legal federation, a super-state, a supreme state *above* the member states.

Another expert on this topic is Prof. Antony Coughlan ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Coughlan ).

This is what he has to say, from an Irish point of view, which is of course no different from the Dutch or Swedish point of view: http://www.teameurope.info/node/232

"1) Lisbon makes the EU Constitution superior to the Irish Constitution in all areas of EU law: The Irish Constitution would still remain, but "Declaration 17 concerning Primacy", which is attached to the Lisbon Treaty, makes clear that EU law would have primacy over and be superior to the Irish Constitution and laws in any case of conflict between the two. It does this by referring to the case-law of the EU Court of Justice, which over the years has asserted the principles of (a) the superiority of EU law, (b) its direct effect in the territory of its Member States, even if it is not formally put through their National Parliaments, and (c) the constitutional character of EU law. EU law and national law deal with different areas and matters, as is normal in Federal States like the USA, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Australia. The EU now makes the majority of our laws each year. The Lisbon Treaty would give the EU the power to make supranational laws that are binding on us in many new areas - see points 7 and 9 below - and would take that power away from the Irish Dail and from Irish citizens who elect the Dail."

So, how does the Lisbon treaty do this again? "It does this by referring to the case-law of the EU Court of Justice".

Now what case-law might that be? Remember what De Vries said?

"It has really started in 1964, when the European Court of Justice ruled in the case Costa/Enel. [...] This incorrect and in my eyes above all unauthorized judgement [...] has led to [...] the misconception that the European law from itself has primacy above the national Dutch law".

So, there you have it. Two experts saying the same thing.

And not only that, this is also what is being said by the Dutch Council of State, an advisory board to the Dutch Government. Its advice about the a.o. the difference between the EU Constitution and the Lisbon treaty can be found in Dutch at: http://www.minbuza.nl/binaries/kamerbrieven-bijlagen/2007/09/1316die-bijlage2.pdf

It contains a most interesting phrase: "Ook wordt niet langer expliciet de voorrang van het recht van de EU in de verdragstekst gecodificeerd". "Also, the supremacy of EU law is no longer explicitly codified in the treaty text."

Now, why oh why would there be a need to "codify" "supremacy of EU law" either explicitly or implicitly in the new EU Constitution c.q. the Lisbon treaty if that supremacy already existed?

The answer is obvious: At the moment there is no legal supremacy of the EU over the member states and the Lisbon treaty is going to change that.

An interesting question, about which the lawyer F. de Vries, former University lecturer in Constitutional Law at the University of Groningen, gave an interesting speech back in 2004, which you can find in Dutch at: http://www.rug.nl/Rechten/faculteit/overFaculteit/lezingVries

He basically says that there is no reason Sweden should obey, since Europe actually has no authority over Swedish National affairs. It just appers th EU has "authority", but it created that on itself. And since no-one defines its own powers, how is it that Sweden is supposed to obey the European Court of Justice?

YET, I must add, since the Lisbon treaty will change all this. However, this is a translation of a part of what this expert had to say:

"All this gives to think. Obviously we have to do with a very particular moment. That becomes clear also from what I just before mentioned as the `approval' of the [European] Constitution by the European Parliament. It was celebrated there as an important step in the direction of a new Europe. But, I ask myself, why did the European Parliament acutally approve that constitution? What actually remains for the citizens of the Member States if their representation in Europe has already agreed with the design? Rather little, one would think at first sight.

Here too legal reality is another. It should be clear that the European Parliament in this process has in fact no role to play. It has no principal authority. Still, I understand the parliament, however. It acts, as it happens, on the basis of the present treaties as a representative of all European citizens. And you have to do something.

I believe that here we run up against a returning problem with the unification of Europe. In all enthousiasm with which we try to shape the European construction work, we incite numerous constitutional problems. We call a new treaty out of ease "a Consitution" and proceed to the order of the day. But there are more examples. The treaty of Maastricht created the `European citizen'. Nationals of the Member States are citizens at two levels: in their own country and in Europe. This `double citizenship' one of course also finds back in the designs of the constitution. But is this double citizenship so logical? Where does your representative as European a citizen actually reside? In The Hague or in Brussels? I will return to the consequences of, what I would want to call, this `representation surplus' soon after.

It strikes me, generally spoken, that Europe generally is pretty good at calling this type of problems, but is silent concerning the solutions there of. This problem is moreover more seriously and especially also older as you probably think. It has really started in 1964, when the European Court of Justice ruled in the case Costa/Enel. In a attempt to [sidestep] the possible detrimental consequences of the way in which the Italian legal system regulated the relation between the national and international law, the Court of Justice reached a remarkable legal conception. The court created, on its own authorisation, a legal order which, to say it in modern terms, would above all acknowledge its own dynamics. On the basis of which Member States would no longer be free to withdraw themselves from that legal order.

This incorrect and in my eyes above all unauthorized judgement, subsequently went to live a life entirely on its own. It has led to, especially in the Netherlands, to the misconception that the European law from itself has primacy above the national Dutch law, also outside of the regulations in articles 93 and 94 of the [Dutch] constitution. Even the Supreme Court seems to put herself at this point of view in her recent pronouncement of last November 2nd (judgement obligatory resting times). This conception seems however completely incorrect to me. What we might further think of Europe, our ties to the European decision-making proces results principally from the Dutch constitution. Europe does not define its own powers, not even the Court of Justice. I hold myself to the just as clear as simple message of the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (Maastricht Urteil). Europe misses `kompetenz kompetenz'. That is probably not a pleasant message for enthusiastic Europeans, the Court of Justice and our own Supreme Court, but hey, Consitutitional Law is not necessarily there for the comforting of these folks."