EU – Page 84 – Slugger O'Toole

Recessions – good for your health?

Mack on April 21, 2010, 5:24 pm

| Readers 2

A couple of weeks back, writing in the Sindo, Gene Kerrigan made the not unreasonable assertion that severe recessions cause unnecessary deaths. We saw all this before. During the Eighties, savage cuts inflicted lasting pain and cost lives — someone had to pay for the crisis. Meanwhile, known to the establishment — who were up to their necks in it — the fortunes of the elite were safeguarded using massive tax frauds. An article in yesterdays Guardian refutes this – …

Roubini sceptical on Eurozone debt

Mack on April 21, 2010, 2:08 pm

| Readers 3

Known as Doctor Doom because he correctly identified the imbalances that led to the credit crunch, Nouriel Roubini appears to be unimpressed with attempts to solve the emerging sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone. Over at RGE monitor he warns – A Modern Greek Tragedy May Soon Turn Into a Broader PIIGS Disaster These issues within the eurozone stem primarily from a loss of competiveness, high wage growth and labor costs which outstripped productivity, undisciplined fiscal policies and, crucially, the …

Does the DUP want to pull out of the European Union?

Mick Fealty on April 21, 2010, 1:45 pm

| Readers 18

Interesting piece from Jonathan Isaby yesterday at Conservative Home, which points out that the Better Off Out group, which favours British withdrawal from the European Union, had 15 MPs as members. Of which no fewer than 8 out of the DUPs nine MPs constituted more than half its parliamentary members. As Jonathan points out, that’s not exactly what it says in the party’s manifesto… In the section about international affairs, it merely states that: “too many powers have been ceded by …

José versus the volcano

Blank on April 21, 2010, 9:34 am

| Readers 1

Disruption due to volcanic ash has reached the European Parliament with changes to the agenda; debates continue mostly as normal but given travel issues for many Deputies voting has been postponed to 5/6 May. The European Commission & Council will have made statements on the volcano (online at some point today) at Tuesday’s session and have already decided to set up an Ad Hoc group addressing the economic consequences. Similar measures haven’t been put in place at Leinster House with the …

Lisbon Essay (31): Checks, balances and a stronger social dimension

Mick Fealty on October 1, 2009, 9:24 pm

| Readers 12

And in the last of our Lisbon essays, Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore rather trenchantly asserts that Lisbon is not about transfering power from Dublin to Brussels. It is he believes, in contrast to Jimmy Kelly in LE26, enhances a social Europe by setting the Charter up as a watchdog on all EU institutions when it comes to the framing and passing of law. And in contrast with Joe Higgins’ concerns in LE4 he believes it would provide a bulwark …

Lisbon Essay (30): The least impact upon the Irish Constitution of any Treaty ever voted on…

Mick Fealty on October 1, 2009, 8:21 pm

| Readers 51

Ciarán Toland is a barrister (so we’ve given him a bit more space to make his case). In this, essay he lays out why he thinks the Lisbon Treaty has taken on a significance in Irish law that barely reflects insignificance in real terms. It lies primarily in the proposal to give the EU (previously three pillar multiple personality) and single legal personality of its own. Much else, he concludes is moving the furniture around: “…the Lisbon Treaty has the …

Lisbon Essay (29): It is Ireland’s credibility that’s at stake…

Mick Fealty on October 1, 2009, 6:26 pm

| Readers 9

John O’Farrell picks up on Heaney’s focus on the word ‘credit’ (nó creid as Gaeilge), and reckons that the poet has put his finger on what’s at stake for Ireland in the referendum when he argued that a No vote will mean that it will be “up to our EU neighbours – not us – to decide how we will be treated in the future.” It’s a theme taken up previously in LE17 and LE13. O’Farrell argues that even though …

Lisbon Essay (28): How on earth do we switch this (EU) thing off?

Mick Fealty on October 1, 2009, 5:30 pm

| Readers 31

Declan Ganley of Libertas notes that if you vote yes tomorrow, then there may be no more opportunities for the plain people of Ireland to turn this process around. This, he argues, is not the second time this treaty has been voted on but the fifth. That the only changes that have been made to it in all of that time (he makes the score 3-2 to the No side by the way) are purely cosmetic demonstrates just how far …

Lisbon Essay (27): If it’s No, Europe will simply find a way to move on without us…

Mick Fealty on October 1, 2009, 2:30 pm

| Readers 6

Dan O’Brien, senior Europe editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, posts from Berlin where he is covering the aftermath of the Germany election. He takes a sounding of insider opinion on Ireland and Lisbon, in several of Europe’s major capitals. The general assumption is that Irish voters will, as they did with Nice, change their minds in tomorrow’s poll. Most negative opinion is constellated around Paris and Berlin. In brief, that negativity centres around a disbelief that a …

Lisbon Essay (26): A ‘No’ vote would show solidarity with the Charter and a social Europe

Mick Fealty on September 30, 2009, 8:39 pm

| Readers 12

Jimmy Kelly of the Unite Union is one of the most respected figures of the No platform. His position is relatively straightforward. In Ireland workers protections lag hugely behind that of much of Europe. In particular he argues that the Charter for Fundamental Rights is being sold as a fait accomplai, when in fact there is no obligation for national governments to comply with its imperatives: “In effect, the Government is asking us to support the ‘form’ of fundamental rights …

Lisbon Essay (25): As Iceland discovered the EU is the firebrigade…

Mick Fealty on September 30, 2009, 3:30 pm

| Readers 34

Jason O’Mahoney lays out a scenario he believes the No side is studiously avoiding: what happens to Ireland’s national interest within Europe if there is a No vote and Lisbon is abandoned for a more centralised, bi or tri-lateral decision making processes in its stead. The Treaty itself is dry and technical because it is dry and technical, not because anyone is trying pull a fast one. And he believes that counter to Nigel Farage’s assertions in LE10 the “alternative …

Aiste Liospóin (24): Níl, mar tá neamhspleachas mar oidhreacht duinne…

Mick Fealty on September 30, 2009, 3:00 am

| Readers 21

Vótáil Concubhar i gcoinne an Chonartha an uair dheireanach, agus ní bheith sé ag athrú a vóta an uair seo.. Tá dhá cheist difriúil ann dar leis: fearg leis an Rialtas, agus na rudaí a mbaineann go díreach leis an Chonradh féin. Níl an cheist faoi rogha idir an fhoireann seo nó an ceann eile; ach is rogha polaitiúil (agus, níos tábhachtaí, bunreachtúil) é. Faoi dheireadh, tarraingíonn an dara reifreann seo ar Chonradh Liospn, tar ?is breith chomh cinnte an …

Lisbon Essay (23): Why Ireland can’t afford the Lisbon Treaty…

Mick Fealty on September 29, 2009, 7:30 pm

| Readers 26

Niamh Uí Bhriain of Cóir sites her anti Lisbon argument in the material crisis of the Tiger economy. Nevertheless she notes that “the Lisbon Treaty is not about providing jobs or encouraging enterprise – it’s a treaty designed to centralise political power in the European Union”. She denies there are any short term economic consequences to signing up to the EU, but that in the longer term it leaves Ireland strategically weaker inside the EU… The attraction for foreign firms …

Lisbon Essay (22): Vote Yes to this unloved bastard son of the European Convention…

Mick Fealty on September 29, 2009, 4:00 pm

| Readers 8

Another European view and another from the Yes perspective comes from Daniel Cohn-Bendit, renegade from 1968 and currently co-president of the European Greens–European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament… No one loves it, he says. Who could? It long, legalistic, and complicated. An ad man’s nightmare. But it is the shaken down product of 8 years of filtering and dispute between all the countries of Europe. It’s not as democratic as he would like, nor as democratic as that …

Lisbon Essay (21): Europeans cannot opt out of globalisation and its problems…

Mick Fealty on September 28, 2009, 7:17 pm

| Readers 14

Richard Gowan notes that with the changing of the guard at the US Whitehouse President Obama is not likely to constrain himself to old alliances to deal with the problems of a much larger and more complex (not to mention more dangerous) world than most of us knew growing up… Richard notes that already huge amounts of time are being chewed up in 27 sets of bilaterals on different sets of policy initiatives … And he argues that since the …

Lisbon Essay (20): After eight years of intense political negotiation it is time to move on…

Mick Fealty on September 28, 2009, 2:00 pm

| Readers 33

Margot Wallström the current Vice-President of the European Commission lays out her case for Lisbon. In particular she notes the high level of distrust lingering in some circles with regard to the changes agreed (ie Ireland’s right to a commissioner, and the legal guarantees), but argues that these are political decisions the unbinding of which would have severe political consequences for whomsoever tried to do it. She also argues that whilst the dangers of a race to the bottom are …

Lisbon Essay (19): A No vote will stop the drift to ‘undemocracy’…

Mick Fealty on September 25, 2009, 3:30 pm

| Readers 5

Jason Walsh argues that when you strip away the contralto hyperbole of some of the more extreme claims of No campaigners like Coir, there is more than a grain of truth to their case that Irish sovereignty is under attack, primarily because multilateral institutions do not take national sovereignty seriously any more. The default assumption is that primary field of play is now on the multilateral plane… Worse than that, he argues, that all manner of powers (fiscal control has …

Lisbon Essay (18): Giving the Celtic Tiger back its growl

Mick Fealty on September 24, 2009, 4:00 pm

| Readers 14

Today Martin Schultz, leader of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament argues that a yes to Lisbon is essential to reviving Ireland’s fortunes (a view previously supported by LE11 but opposed in LE5 (and in this follow up from Stephen Kinsella). The question, he argues, is not apocalyptical. It about making Europe more transparent and democratically accountable by strengthening parliamentary rights at the national level. The benefits of the Union to smaller countries like Ireland, …

Lisbon (17): Without the treaty Ireland cedes its interests to bigger fish…

Mick Fealty on September 23, 2009, 4:56 pm

| Readers 4

Senator Deirdre de Burca argues that for all the legitimate misgivings surrounding the beefing of a European foreign policy, not least round those concerns in LE4 and LE16, the mere act of the EU coming together in a single multilateral body to tackle issues like climate change, international terrorism or with wild hiccuping in global markets. Collective action is not a choice, it is a necessity. Without that capacity Ireland can have little hope that its own interests that will …

LIsbon Essay (16): Building of a militaristic trojan horse…

Mick Fealty on September 22, 2009, 3:59 pm

| Readers 38

Today Andy Storey of UCD takes a contrary view of Ireland’s neutrality status post Lisbon to that expressed in LE13, and argues that whatever other countries mean by ‘neutrality’ in Ireland for generations now it has meant, as outlined in Lisbon’s ‘legal guarantees’ “non-membership of a military defence alliance”. He also questions whether it really is in Ireland’s interest to contribute to “a more assertive union [EU military] role … will contribute to the vitality of a renewed [NATO].” And, …