Posted on 02/04/2013 10:20:44 AM PST by Olog-hai
Minister for European Affairs Lucinda Creighton has described Ireland’s position on military neutrality as “narcissistic”, but conceded it would be difficult for Fine Gael to win public support for a major shift in defense policy.
A report on Ireland by one of France’s main EU think tanks, due to be published today, quotes Creighton saying she is “very supportive” of Ireland joining common European defense, but doesn’t believe her party could gain “political traction for that in the short term”. …
The report by Notre Europe (Institut Jacques Delors), published to mark the 40th anniversary of Ireland’s EU accession, concludes the debt crisis has shifted Irish attitudes to European integration, rekindling anxieties about the balance of power. The notion of EU membership giving Ireland a louder voice played a role in shaping pro-European attitudes, the report argues, but this feeling was “somewhat shattered” by the events leading to the EU-International Monetary Fund bailout. “The tight supervision of domestic policies by outsiders has breathed new life into ‘sovereignty’ as a category of the Irish political debate,” it notes, with Germany and the European Central Bank common targets of Irish criticism. There is a “widespread feeling”, including among Government officials, the ECB has applied double standards, treating Ireland more harshly than Spain or Italy. …
(Excerpt) Read more at irishtimes.com ...
They want all the economic upside of being in the EU, but none of the downside.
They want to enjoy the military security that their membership in the EU and their relationship with the US gives them, but they do not want to lift a finger to help.
Narcissism doesn't begin to describe it.
It hasn't been the Free State since Eastern Monday 1949.
And it hasn’t been a republic since June 8, 1972. That’s when de Valera signed the Third Amendment, making “European” law supreme over Irish law.
The Free State was a Dominion of the Commonwealth with a Governor-General.
Then, on Easter Monday 1949 the former Irish Free State, the State of Eire, left the Commonwealth altogether and became officially the Republic of Ireland.
Unfettered access to the European market.
Ireland’s economy was stimulated by lowering its corporate tax rate to 12½ percent and having US companies go in there
Correct. And the ability of Ireland to supply their new corporate partners with plenty of EU-passport holding employees was a key element of the policy's success.
As far as defense, you are now saying that it is OK for the European Union to totally dismantle Ireland’s constitution to benefit the whims of EU elites.
You seem to have deliberately misread my post.
If Ireland wants sovereignty, then it needs to make a tough decision about its EU membership.
It cannot choose the benefits of membership and reject the inconveniences.
That is childish.
Tough choices need to be made.
I do not know why you’re peddling EU propaganda. So-called “unfettered access to the European market” did nothing for Ireland between 1973 and the 1990s. And it is not unfettered—it’s mired down with some of the worst regulations on the planet (the Common Agricultural Policy decimated Ireland’s sugar beet business thanks to draconian quotas, and the Common Fisheries Policy allowing fishing boats from other EU countries to decimate what used to be Ireland’s sovereign catch, just for two examples). Never mind the EU bullying non-members, and especially treating members of the European Economic Area that are not members of the EU as though they were EU members (such as Norway).
“The ability of Ireland to supply their new corporate partners with plenty of EU-passport-holding employees”? Nonsense. Most of the employees were native Irish people, and it was about sales to US markets. This was not about access to EU markets at all!
There are no benefits to membership in the EU. Destruction of your national sovereignty to the benefit of imperial elites, so they can fulfill their hawkish ambitions? A central government of the same pattern as the government of the USSR and Red China? Perhaps you need to read the treaties that formed the EU to get a sense of what they’re about.
Oh, please.
Sugarbeets and offshore fishing were minor industries compared to the windfall Ireland saw from new jobs in banking, insurance, pharmaceuticals, aviation and other high-value added industries.
Most of the employees were native Irish people, and it was about sales to US markets. This was not about access to EU markets at all!
More accurately, it was about US companies finding a low-tax base in Ireland for hiring Irish and other EU passport holders to staff subsidiaries that could provide value for their operations at home (in the US) and also in the EU market.
Not to mention all the remittances from the continent that EU-passport holding Irish citizens living abroad generated. And those expatriates did not go abroad to work as beet farmers.
There are no benefits to membership in the EU.
There are benefits and there are costs. In 2007, the benefits outweighed the costs. Today, the costs outweigh the benefits.
The Irish understood what the EU was, they are not stupid.
If they want out of the costs now, they have to opt out of the whole thing.
Oh please indeed. How come Ireland’s economic boom didn’t happen as soon as they joined the EU (known as the EEC back in the 70s)?
The USA never needed Ireland as a springboard into Europe. They were already there, industrially speaking, especially through ties that went back before WWII. The US dominance of Europe’s auto industry was no accident (GM owning Opel and Vauxhall, Chrysler owning several car companies in England and France, the divisions of Ford from whence the 1970s “captive imports” came such as the original Mercury Capri).
Ireland’s lowering of its corporate tax rate was totally independent of anything having to do with the EU—as was its economic success resulting from that.
Again, there are no benefits to the European Union. The only benefits are to its elites. Furthermore, the EU was formed specifically to push the USA out of Europe versus letting them in. And there is no excuse to dismantling the constitution of any country just to suit the central government—the USA does not dismantle the constitutions of individual states to suit and strengthen the central government in DC (or did not, prior to the big liberal takeover, but still the states have their own rights and character).
You realize that the Maastricht Treaty was not signed until 1992, right? And that it was not implemented until later in the 1990s?
The USA never needed Ireland as a springboard into Europe.
You cite US market presence in the UK - always a good market for the US.
The larger issue has always been the protectionist markets of continental Europe.
Irish subsidiaries were one of many different ways of trying to crack that nut.
Ireland’s lowering of its corporate tax rate was totally independent of anything having to do with the EU
Not exactly. It was pitched to the Dail on the basis that EU subsidies for infrastructure would replace the revenue lost in the interim, and that the revenues from increased investment would soon fill the gap.
That was absolutely right.
Furthermore, the EU was formed specifically to push the USA out of Europe versus letting them in.
Correct.
That was the core desire of the French, German and Italian technocracy that created Maastricht.
Ireland could have chosen the Swiss route, but they chose the Portuguese one instead.
If European markets were particularly protectionist against the USA going back decades, how come GM has owned Opel for as long as it has? Chrysler was active in France for a long time as well (hence cars like the Plymouth Horizon/Dodge Omni derived from the Simca original). Many other US industries on continental Europe too. They (we) have been there ever since the end of the last war.
The Treaty of Maastricht advanced the politicization of the EU. The Treaty of Rome was the foundation of the European Economic Community, which eliminated trade barriers and should have brought the economic advantages always claimed by the EU elites, but it did not. Furthermore, Ireland has never been a signatory to the Schengen Agreeement.
Ireland hasn’t benefited from any alleged infrastructure subsidies that allegedly were supposed to come from the EU. The progressive tax rates on natives remained in place for ages, and those have always paid for road improvements, including that of building motorways. Thanks to overcentralization dating back to the 1920s (creating the Great Southern Railway, which turned into C.I.E.), the railroad infrastructure has greatly suffered, with any one step forward followed by two steps backward. There aren’t any advancements such as high speed rail or suchlike.
The EU started with the Treaty of Paris, which created the European Coal and Steel Community. The similarities to Maastricht and other treaties (the central government was created back then, having different names, e.g. High Authority for Commission, General Assembly for Parliament) are a bit chilling. The 1957 Treaty of Rome, which turned the ECSC into the European Economic Community (informally called the Common Market), was the first to use the phrase “ever-closer union”. What the EU became post-Maastricht was being built long before Maastricht.
A report on Ireland by one of France's main EU think tanks, due to be published today, quotes Creighton saying she is "very supportive" of Ireland joining common European defense, but doesn’t believe her party could gain "political traction for that in the short term".Tell recruits that the mess hall has an open bar.
‘The Irish are the sidecar to our motorbike, they’re going nowhere without us.’
—British comedian Al Murray
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