If the EU suspends the country , then their choice will be :
a) Leave the EU and lose both the funding they get and the free access to european markets.
b) Ask the CIA to leave and lose the US funding.

Given the EU funding, for say poland, in the 2004 to 2006 budget runs to around $15 billion I can't
see that the US will be paying them more. Add in the level of trade with the EU & there's no way that it will be worth their while to keep any 'secret prisons' open.

If it's one of the candidate countries then they'll be told to close it or forget joining.

Just as a private country club has the right to exclude blacks or women if it wants, a pseudo-government like the EU should give itself the right to choose who it wants to associate with.

Isn't the conservative line against UN that it allows human rights violators on certain committees? I would think conservatives would laud the EU holding countries RESPONSIBLE for their actions.

I hope this eurotrash does kick a few countries out. The US should step in and sign independant treaties with these nations and give them a leg up on trade verses the EU.

As far as Anderson declaring that torture is "barbourous", his sort of ilk has no problem with sticking a scissors in the back of the head of a child being born and sucking out the babies brains.

Both liberals and conservatives are in favor of using torture (it does work). Liberals like torturing the weak and the innocent for convenience. Conservatives want to torture the scum of the earth to save some of our people.

Its liberals like Anderson who are the barbarians.

Nope,the member to be suspended doesn't get a vote.

Secondly, even if the member being affected couldn't vote on its future status, the likelihood all all 24 remaining EU members agreeing to suspend the member is virtually nil.

Cirby, you are quite right that if they're going to apply the rules, they need to do so uniformly.

May I suggest that JJ's reaction is better justified by our suspicion that the EU is doing some grandstanding, and that (as Cirby suggests) they're happening to apply the rules in a case where they get to frown upon the U.S.A.?

I agree that the EU is a club and that clubs can set their own rules. This particular type of club, an IGO, though, has the constraints of practicality. If, say, the UK exercises its sovereignty in a way that may technically violate the rules of the club, imposing harsh sanctions may well destroy the club. A state whose voting rights are suspended will--indeed, should--resign from the EU immediately.

The UN, WTO, World Court, and so forth face similar constraints.

The EU is a club. It has rules:

Frattini said suspending EU voting rights would be justified under the EU treaty, which stipulates that the bloc is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and the rule of law, and that a persistent breach of these principles can be punished.

Clandestine detention centers would violate the European Convention on Human Rights.

Whether you're a "sovereign nation" is irrelevant. By entering into the EU, a nation trades some of its sovereignty for other advantages. You don't follow the rules, you get kicked out. What's the big deal?

Would the EU be any less "destroyed" by one of its principal nation's declaring, hey, we can flout the rules because you don't dare kick us out?

Condoning or practicing torture is not, by the definitions adopted by the EU, a "national security decision." It's an act of barbarism, on a continent with a very recent history of barbarism.