OT: Does VGE need an EEG?

Responding to someone who said that the mechanism in the
Constitutional^WReform^WLisbon Treaty allowing member states to leave
the EU would undermine the people's will to give meaning and force to
the European project, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing wrote:

<http://vge-europe.eu/index.php?post/2007/11/23/Quelques-reponses-de-VGE>

Je ne pense pas que vos inquiétudes soient justifiées. La
possibilité offerte aux Etats membres de quitter l’Union
européenne par une procédure solennelle et démocratique, qui
figurait déjà dans le Traité constitutionnel, est conçue
comme une réponse à la campagne d’intimidation des
eurosceptiques anglo-saxons qui, entre 2002 et 2004,
présentaient l’Union comme une ‹ prison › dont les Etats
membres ne pourraient plus sortir. Il s’agit simplement de
souligner que l’adhésion à l’Union repose, comme tout
grand acte démocratique, sur la volonté populaire.

My French is shamefully rusty, so I dashed straight to M. Google:

I do not think that your concerns are justified. The opportunity
for the member states to leave the European Union by a solemn
and democratic procedure, enshrined in the Constitutional
Treaty, is conceived as a response to a campaign of intimidation
Eurosceptic UK who, between 2002 and 2004, presenting the Union
as a "prison" in which the Member States could no longer escape.
It is simply to stress that accession to the Union is based,
like any great democratic act on the will of the people.

(ObAUE: It's peculiar that "des eursoceptiques anglo-saxons" should be
translated as "Eurosceptic UK", which appears to be a sort of
postmodifying attributive noun phrase. Or something very like it. Or
something else entirely.)

Does either version make any sense at all? Stripped of its grandiose
blather, the English version might be: "Don't worry. The escape clause
was included only because of intimidation. Its inclusion merely stresses
that membership is a democratic matter."

But membership isn't currently a democratic matter. Until the escape
clause is ratified with the rest of the new (ha!) treaty, member states
cannot unilaterally secede from the union.

So what VGE is really saying (unless the Google translation is missing a
subtle negative or something) is: "Don't worry. The prison you want
isn't a prison anymore."

Which doesn't make sense.

Is the great man going senile?

--
V
VGE's latest blog says, yet again, how similar the Lisbon Treaty is to his
baby, the Constitutional Treaty. So he's not wholly ga-ga.
.