The "we did everything Europe wanted of us" defense.

SkepticOne

I've been noticing lately that a lot of the junior ministers that have been trotted out in the media lately have been using this line.

Should we accept this? Our elected politicians are supposed to be running the country according to what is best for Ireland. The buck is supposed to stop with the government.

It doesn't matter whether the advice/suggestions/orders (take your pick) were correct or incorrect. The point is we chose to go along with them and must take the consequences.

Liam Byrne

SkepticOne wrote: »

It doesn't matter whether the advice/suggestions/orders (take your pick) were correct or incorrect. The point is we chose to go along with them and must take the consequences.

Shouldn't that be "they" ? No-one's asked us for a long, long time.

But I have noticed this crap being spouted for a while now, including claims that the EU "approved of" the bank bailout (when it had actually merely "ok'd" it).

It's just another way of FF trying to imply that they did something right / spread the blame.

View

SkepticOne wrote: »

I've been noticing lately that a lot of the junior ministers that have been trotted out in the media lately have been using this line.

Should we accept this? Our elected politicians are supposed to be running the country according to what is best for Ireland. The buck is supposed to stop with the government.

It doesn't matter whether the advice/suggestions/orders (take your pick) were correct or incorrect. The point is we chose to go along with them and must take the consequences.

Well, one of the things the rest of the EU wants us to be able to do is manage ourselves well enough that we are not actually a basketcase, so - No - I don't think we should accept that line.

The buck does stop with the government...

catbear

If a Fianna Failer says anything like this to you, just say "The IMF have to be invited in." They ****, stick their nose in it.

Scofflaw

As Liam said, the government made the decisions, and checked with the EU that what they were doing didn't conflict with any EU obligations. The buck stops with the government.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BlitzKrieg

Like the issue with the water charges and the lisbon treaty etc

Pretty much everything the EU passess is still implemented by our own government, so ministers shifting the blame for the current situation over to exclusively the EU is bullsh*t of the highest order.

Yes there are issues that policies developed in the EU are continent wide, but its up to the individual governments to address issues that may rise from these policies and also to find the best way to impliment it for their own state.


So yeah incompitant sh*tty government = poor handling of EU relations.

later12

This is on of the genuine problems of European Union membership: transparency and accountability.

The fact is, it is unclear to most Europeans what exactly it is that the European parliament is promoting. Equally, the nature of the parliament and the commission does not lend itself to accountability on issues of policy or direction.

Accountability and Transparency are two of the pillars of any democracy. They are not absent in the current European structure, but they are severely lacking.
Most of the time, we are quite happy with this, since generally we trust the Europeans, particularly in their Nordic type 'sandals and muesli' approach to policy framing.
It is only at times like the this, in an economic disaster area, that we begin to question Europe and her motives, and our delay in doing so is symptomatic of our general apathy about our governance.

You get the Government you deserve; and if you don't look, you get the policies you didn't look for.

View

later10 wrote: »

This is on of the genuine problems of European Union membership: transparency and accountability.

The fact is, it is unclear to most Europeans what exactly it is that the European parliament is promoting.

The European Parliament - like the Dail - is a legislature. It is not in the business of promoting anything per se, rather it is in the business of passing legislation.

The individual Parties (and their MEPs or TDs), on the other hand, are in the business of promoting policies in line with their political persuasions.

later10 wrote: »

Equally, the nature of the parliament and the commission does not lend itself to accountability on issues of policy or direction.

Accountability and Transparency are two of the pillars of any democracy. They are not absent in the current European structure, but they are severely lacking.

Substitute the words "Dail", "Government" and "Irish" for the underlined words above and the entire comment could apply to our domestic politics.

Since we fail miserably to apply any of the above in domestic politics, it is a tad unreasonable to expect the EU to operate to some perfect standard.

That is not to say there couldn't be improvements in how the EU operates but we need to figure out what the new "Improved Standard" should be, if we realistically want it to be implemented. Also, people at EU level probably won't be convinced about the advantages of such a standard if we can't operate a comparable one at domestic level.

nesf

Bear in mind that many years ago the EU was asking us to calm down our Budgets, to not add fuel to the fire, to not cut taxes and raise spending at the same time. Our Government ignored their advice.

So the "we did everything the EU wanted of us" argument doesn't really hold up. We just started listening to them of late.