EU – Page 61 – Slugger O'Toole

“it is in the public interest to know the type of information that the Ministers were taking into account”

Pete Baker on July 14, 2012, 8:29 pm

| Readers 40

Here’s a little referendum related snippet from Scotland. The Scottish government is reportedly “surprised” at a recent ruling by the country’s Freedom of Information Commissioner. In response to a request by Labour MEP Catherine Stihler on 30 May last year, the Scottish government had refused to confirm or deny whether it had received legal advice on the status of an independent Scotland within the EU. They had cited section 18(1) of the FOI Act. As the Information Commissioner’s press statement notes This allows …

Euro crisis: “Welcome to Europe’s endless debt saga.”

Pete Baker on July 12, 2012, 4:39 pm

| Readers 39

I haven’t posted an update on the euro crisis for a while, and this European Diary piece by Arthur Beesley in the Irish Times might help explain why. Welcome to Europe’s endless debt saga. Sunshine is a rare enough commodity in cloudy Brussels – and a downpour follows any glorious spell. The hunch must be, however, that Vitamin D levels are at an all-time low in the euro trouble crowd. After all, the general routine these days involves hundreds if not thousands …

Is it “conceivable that in future Ireland would need to align itself even closer to Britain economically?”

Mick Fealty on July 6, 2012, 2:59 pm

| Readers 66

Good interview in the Irish Post which pushes Martin McGuinness a little harder than we’ve become accustomed to in recent years within the Irish MSM. I was particularly interested in this section, because it has some pragmatic echoes of Bertie’s analysis just before he left office. Yet it also asks some real questions about the foreign policy implications of the slow economic drift between Britain (and Northern Ireland) and Europe (and the Republic) for anyone wanting to put the two …

A well performing adjustment programme?

John Ó Néill on June 29, 2012, 3:08 pm

| Readers 57

As Mick has noted, the news coming from the latest in a long line of EU economic crisis summits appears to be good for the Irish government. The rather terse statement issued at 4 am this morning is being pored over by economists as if it were some Joycean text, but it is pretty light on detail. Despite the limited information available, RTE are taking the throaty enthusiasm of An Taoiseach at face value and are fairly happy that the state …

Pro Union campaign on the back foot without a decision on devo more

Brian Walker on June 26, 2012, 10:15 am

| Readers 49

Appropriately enough, caution greeted Alistair Darling’s launch of Better Together, the pro Union multiparty campaign to counter the SNP and challenge the notion that extends well beyond the pro- independence ranks, that Alex Salmond is head and shoulders above all possible rivals. So far, not too bad. “Better Together” sounds more positive than “No Independence” – (even though the title unfortunately clashes with a Scottish NHS monitoring website.) Alan Cochrane, the Union’s greatest champion in the London press agreed the …

Euro crisis: “It’s politics without policy choice…”

Pete Baker on June 19, 2012, 2:55 pm

| Readers 64

The pressure is definitely beginning to tell on the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso at the G20 summit in Mexico. No news yet from Greece, and the markets are still betting against Spain. He may, as he claims, have a “vision of where we need to go“, or he may, as Michael White says, be sticking his head in the sand. In any case, at Crooked Timber Niamh Hardiman has been looking more closely at the end-game for the political trilemma. …

“all participants attend Bilderberg in a private and not an official capacity…”

Pete Baker on June 18, 2012, 6:41 pm

| Readers 64

As the Irish Times noted at the weekend, the Irish Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan, has been providing written answers to the Dáil about his trip to Chantilly, and his attendance at the 2012 Bilderberg Meeting. Here’s his 13 June written answer on “Official Travel” Minister for Finance (Deputy Michael Noonan): I attended the Bilderberg meeting in Westfield Marriot, Chantilly, Virginia, USA, from 1 to 3 June 2012. I, like a number of my European colleagues (both Ministers and EU Commissioners), …

After #Euro2012 is it time to think about a single Ireland soccer team?

Mick Fealty on June 15, 2012, 10:10 am

| Readers 138

Well, as it was put on Morning Ireland this morning the Republic sang whilst Spain played football. The singing, whilst impressive, only annoyed Roy Keane the more. The Corkman was blunt: “We’re a small country, we’re up against it, but let’s not just go along for the sing-song every now and again.” Translated, this roughly means: “this is sport, not entertainment”. I’m sure my old Da, who never even saw Keane the elder play but who loved seriously competitive players …

“The JHA Council’s approach of 7 June represents a slap in the face of parliamentary democracy”

Pete Baker on June 14, 2012, 6:42 pm

| Readers 50

If the euro crisis wasn’t enough of a concern for supporters of the European Project, the attempted reform of Schengen is causing another headache. The European Parliament has now suspended co-operation with the European Council on five draft bills connected to border security “until a satisfactory outcome is achieved on Schengen governance.” The Conference of Presidents also decided to remove from the July plenary session agenda the Carlos Coelho report on a proposal for a Schengen Evaluation and Monitoring Mechanism and the Renate Weber …

Euro crisis: “I am not sure whether the urgency of this is fully understood in all the capitals”

Pete Baker on June 13, 2012, 3:59 pm

| Readers 65

It would be fair to say that there remains a difference in opinion of the correct response to the euro crisis. The BBC quotes European Commission President José Manuel Barroso. European governments need to agree urgently on steps to forge a closer union because of the eurozone’s “systemic problem”, the head of the European Commission says. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called for a “vision of where we need to go”. “I am not sure whether the urgency of this …

Now Show Eurozone analogy: “Not the Englishman, they had a row about spicy food so he refused to come”

Mick Fealty on June 12, 2012, 2:34 pm

| Readers 69

listen to ‘Now Show on the Eurozone crisis’ on Audioboo If the Eurozone crisis consistently confounds you, here’s a great extended analogy from this week’s Now Show on BBC Radio Four… It breaks off before the end, but it is great nonetheless… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: …

Euro crisis: “These are empty, senseless phrases, an abuse of language”

Pete Baker on June 12, 2012, 12:32 pm

| Readers 83

In the Irish Times, Paddy Woodworth notes an all-too-familiar tale of political chutzpah in Europe [Nevermind closer to home! – Ed]. This time it’s the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, and his spin on that ‘magic bullet’. From the Irish Times report The total reversal of his oft-stated conviction that no EU money was needed by the Spanish banks became the vindication of his strategic abilities. Flying in the face of well-documented alternative accounts of events, he insisted that it was …

Spanish deal no magic bullet for Ireland after all

Brian Walker on June 11, 2012, 12:31 pm

| Readers 27

The debate on the implications for the Irish bailout is hotting up and is well covered in the Irish Times. Instead of setting a precedent for better terms, the paper argues that deal offered to Madrid actually reduces the chances of renegotiating it, and exposes the difference in treatment between large and small members of the eurozone. These arguments don’t seem entirely consistent and remain to be unpicked. If the Spanish bailout isn’t so different from the Irish, does of …

So why can’t Ireland get a Spanish deal?

Brian Walker on June 10, 2012, 12:12 am

| Readers 39

It’s the obvious question isn’t ? Here it is posed by Stephen Kinsella in The Irish Economy Spain’s banks are getting a series of loans. Hooray. The rather vague Eurogroup statement on Spain is here. It’s being reported that Spain will require up to 100 billion euro for its banks, which will be added to its national debt. The money will come in tranches, first from the EFSF, and then later from the ESM. There aren’t specific austerity measures attached to …

Ed Miliband spots the gaping hole in the case for the Union. Can he fill it?

Brian Walker on June 7, 2012, 10:22 am

| Readers 43

With the fluttering of Union Jacks alive in the memory, Ed Miliband has chosen the gap between the diamond jubilee and the Olympics to widen the argument over Scottish independence. It’s an appropriate moment. “We’ve concentrated on shaping a new politics for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But some people in England felt Labour’s attention had turned away. That something was holding us back from celebrating England, too. That we were too nervous to talk of English pride and …

Euro crisis: “A fiat currency backed by heterogeneous sovereigns is irremediably fragile…”

Pete Baker on June 6, 2012, 10:05 pm

| Readers 36

The Financial Times’ chief economics commentator Martin Wolf was at the Bilderberg meeting in Chantilly this year too. And on his return, as spotted by the Guardian’s eurozone crisis live-blog today, he has had this to say. How much pain can the countries under stress endure? Nobody knows. What would happen if a country left the eurozone? Nobody knows. Might even Germany consider exit? Nobody knows. What is the long-run strategy for exit from the crises? Nobody knows. Given such uncertainty, panic is, …

Euro crisis: “Europe’s common currency is its formative element.”

Pete Baker on June 4, 2012, 5:32 pm

| Readers 35

The president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, has a plan. Or, at least, a timetable. Herman Van Rompuy told a news conference in St Petersburg, Russia that, by the next summit of EU leaders at the end of June, he and three other EU officials would present “the main building blocks for this deepened economic and monetary union” and “a working method to achieve this objective”. “In those building blocks, banking integration is an important chapter… I will deal at …

Fiscal Compact Referendum: A comment round up…

Mick Fealty on June 2, 2012, 1:00 pm

| Readers 53

Is a class based politics emerging? Jason O’Mahony seems to think so. Complaints that it was the middle class and rural voters wot one it against the poorer classes is part of a limiting contempt that some sections of Irish politics have for the people who always broker political power in the Irish state. – Ross O’Carroll Kelly (can Ireland really sustain such an expensive stereotype any more), waiting on the seventh tee at Portmarnock: O,” THE OLD MAN GOES, …

Bilderberg 2012: “Like a corporate cross between Santa Claus and a big friendly squid.”

Pete Baker on June 1, 2012, 9:44 pm

| Readers 54

It’s just as well that Ireland said ‘Yes’ to the Fiscal Treaty. I can only imagine the embarrassed silences Irish Finance Minister, Michael Noonan, would have experienced this weekend if the result had gone the other way. Where is Michael? He’s in the US. Virginia, since you ask. In Chantilly. At the 60th annual Bilderberg conference… It’s quite a list of attendees. Some names you might recognise include Lord [Peter] Mandelson and US Senator John Kerry, as well as the chairmen …

Spoilt Vote of the Day

Pete Baker on June 1, 2012, 2:29 pm

| Readers 54

As spotted by the Guardian Eurozone crisis live blog. John McGuirk @john_mcguirk Spoilt vote of the day. #eureftwitpic.com/9rjkab Let’s see if the embed works. Pete Baker