Leaving the EU - A success story

Juicee · 30-11-2010 2:18pm #1

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/alexsingleton/100065718/why-is-greenland-so-rich-these-days-it-said-goodbye-to-the-eu/

An interesting piece on Greenland and their success since leaving the EU. Why in the bejayzus is taking control of our own destiny once again so alien to our politicians??? If Greenland can do it so can we

Laminations · 30-11-2010 2:34pm

Greenland’s politicians realised that the fisheries policy was ruining their fishing industry

I think that despite Scofflaws measured vulcan-like approach to the costs and benefits of the CFP, that this policy is ruining our fishing industry too.

http://www.marine.ie/home/community/education/lessonplans/TheRealMapofIrelandIrelandsMarineResource.htm

seamus · 30-11-2010 2:34pm

Juicee wrote: »

If Greenland can do it so can we

The article says it all: Fishing is 82% of Greenland's exports, and the fisheries policies of the EEC at the time were not beneficial to Greenland. Therefore membership of the EEC was nonsensical from their perspective. They don't need a free market to sell their fish, because their level of fisheries cannot be produced by any old country.

Fishing is not a major export of ours nor is it ever likely to be. Pharmaceuticals and technology are our major exports, and given that any country in the world is capable of producing these items in the same volume, removing ourselves from the free market would instantly make it more expensive for companies to produce their products here, and so they would look at moving elsewhere.

Before you talk about removing ourselves from the EU, you first need to tell us what part of EU membership is crippling our economy, and how you expect going it alone is likely to improve our economy.

You seem to be advocating it as some kind of fix-all solution, but without any actual reasons why it would be so.

meglome · 30-11-2010 2:54pm

The EU would have wanted tasty slice of Greenland's fish as they did with us. But the value of those to each country is vastly different. The figures I can find handy are... In 2005 total of Irish fish exports was €354 million. Our exports in 2005 were €86.8 billion. So while Greenland would be giving away a large chunk of their potential exports we certainly are not.

http://www.bim.ie/uploads/text_content/docs/Factfile%20on%20Seafood%20Industry%20-%20Jan%202007.pdf
http://www.finfacts.com/irelandbusinessnews/publish/article_10009143.shtml

seamus · 30-11-2010 3:11pm

Indeed, if we were to look at fisheries as a potential major export industry, with a view to disconnecting from the EU and relying on it as an income source, we have a problem of infrastructure. Basically, we have a shedload of coastline and a surprisingly large amount of sea area which is "ours", but we don't have the resources to fish it nor enforce it. I doubt that 100,000 former construction workers are willing to move to Westport and work on a trawler in the harsh atlantic conditions for a living.

Without the protection of the EU, we would be wide open for our waters to be fished bare by EU trawlers and our laughably small navy would be completely incapable of protecting our fish stocks.

That's not to say it's not a possibility in future, with proper planing and build-up; but to cut ourselves free from the EU for the promise of a potentially huge fisheries industry in what - 10, 20, 30 years time - would be a number of times more foolish and devastating than any bank bailout.

amacachi · 30-11-2010 3:25pm

seamus wrote: »

Indeed, if we were to look at fisheries as a potential major export industry, with a view to disconnecting from the EU and relying on it as an income source, we have a problem of infrastructure. Basically, we have a shedload of coastline and a surprisingly large amount of sea area which is "ours", but we don't have the resources to fish it nor enforce it. I doubt that 100,000 former construction workers are willing to move to Westport and work on a trawler in the harsh atlantic conditions for a living.

You might be surprised how many people would be willing to do it.

eoinbn · 30-11-2010 5:14pm

The story is completely irrelevant. They are talking about an island that is the size 1/2 of europe with the population of an Irish town been able to make an industry out of fishing....

However we should be preparing for our exit from the EU/Euro as it's becoming fairly clear that the EU project is dead. The lack of a credible plan from anyone in the EU is mystifying. They have alienate a number of countries and all they have got in return is a slight delaying in the defaulting of some europe banks on other european banks! The US went in and cleaned up there banks 2 years ago yet two years onwards we are still just running from country to country pouring water on the ashes instead of been pro-active and getting in before the fire and back burning.

baalthor · 30-11-2010 5:19pm

amacachi wrote: »

You might be surprised how many people would be willing to do it.

Very few were willing to do it between 1921 and 1973.

Greenland is not an independent country, like the Faeroes it's part of the Kingdom of Denmark.
IoM and Channel Islands would have similar status. The latter two are not part of the EU or the UK but are dependencies of the UK.

Note that all of the above mentioned have tiny populations.

maxxie · 30-11-2010 5:28pm

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ambroseevans-pritchard/100008812/irelands-debt-servitude/

Another good article !

Scofflaw · 30-11-2010 5:42pm

Laminations wrote: »

I think that despite Scofflaws measured vulcan-like approach to the costs and benefits of the CFP, that this policy is ruining our fishing industry too.

http://www.marine.ie/home/community/education/lessonplans/TheRealMapofIrelandIrelandsMarineResource.htm

It's true that I prefer the facts to the mad stories, I'm afraid, although the CFP is far from a success story by anybody's lights, including my own. My objection to the policy isn't that it "has destroyed the Irish fishing industry", because that's frankly codswallop, but rather that it encourages over-fishing by removing any real incentive or ability for countries to manage their national waters sustainably.

If we were to cut loose from the EU and "reclaim our seas", then, presuming we fished at the current unsustainable rate, we'd make about €380-450m a year in landed catch value. That would support 10,000-12,500 people on the average industrial wage, assuming they pay all the fuel and boat costs themselves.

amacachi wrote:

You might be surprised how many people would be willing to do it.

I'd be extremely surprised, because even back in the days when unemployment was rife and we could fish as much as we liked, the fishing industry wasn't any bigger than it is now - indeed, it was smaller. Nor would there be any point in them doing it, since the fishing industry can only directly support about ten or twelve thousand people anyway.

cordially,
Scofflaw

View · 30-11-2010 6:18pm

eoinbn wrote: »

However we should be preparing for our exit from the EU/Euro as it's becoming fairly clear that the EU project is dead.

The death of the EU has been predicted so many times that at this stage it must just be an extremely active zombie.

UsernameInUse · 30-11-2010 6:23pm

Eh, Hello

...because there is no party currently in this country who is imaginative enough to change or even want to change the political staus quo. Sure, aren't they sitting on their arse all day and getting a heafy sum of taxpayers money! Why on Earth would they want to leave the E.U.....

Only a Libertarian Party would need to leave the European Union because Brussels policies are in direct opposition to what a Libertarians ideologies contain.

If you want to leave Europe, you need to vote for a strong left wing party.

View · 30-11-2010 6:23pm

Scofflaw wrote: »

If we were to cut loose from the EU and "reclaim our seas", then, presuming we fished at the current unsustainable rate, we'd make about €380-450m a year in landed catch value. That would support 10,000-12,500 people on the average industrial wage, assuming they pay all the fuel and boat costs themselves.

The cost of providing the navy with ships to police the waters would need to be subtracted from the figure. I believe that the EU part-funded the navy's ships in the past and we need to pay for them with fish or something similiar.

fontanalis · 30-11-2010 10:38pm

seamus wrote: »

Indeed, if we were to look at fisheries as a potential major export industry, with a view to disconnecting from the EU and relying on it as an income source, we have a problem of infrastructure. Basically, we have a shedload of coastline and a surprisingly large amount of sea area which is "ours", but we don't have the resources to fish it nor enforce it. I doubt that 100,000 former construction workers are willing to move to Westport and work on a trawler in the harsh atlantic conditions for a living.

Without the protection of the EU, we would be wide open for our waters to be fished bare by EU trawlers and our laughably small navy would be completely incapable of protecting our fish stocks.

That's not to say it's not a possibility in future, with proper planing and build-up; but to cut ourselves free from the EU for the promise of a potentially huge fisheries industry in what - 10, 20, 30 years time - would be a number of times more foolish and devastating than any bank bailout.

Look what happened to salmon stocks over the years. Letting a fishing fleet of unemployed contruction workers loose with the tyical irsh attitude of not looking ahead and you'll see what kind of fihing industry there will be left. Fishing is also very seasonal.

ChocolateSauce · 30-11-2010 10:56pm

Greenland depends on cash subsidies from Denmark for 50% of its GDP, that's hardly going it alone and doing it well.

It also has the one of the world's highest suicide rates.

meglome · 30-11-2010 11:44pm

So to summarise... Greenland is nothing like Ireland. It's not going it alone and it's not that successful. And pretty much all it's got is fish.

I'm convinced, let's leave the EU immediately.

Scofflaw · 01-12-2010 1:28am

View wrote: »

The cost of providing the navy with ships to police the waters would need to be subtracted from the figure. I believe that the EU part-funded the navy's ships in the past and we need to pay for them with fish or something similiar.

They paid for the Deirdre, Emer, Aoife and Aisling in full, as far as I know, and part-funded some of the others. Just before we joined the EU, there was a brief period in 1970 where we had no fisheries protection vessels at all and people were leaving the Service in droves.

We're really not a very seafaring nation, it seems. Nor a fish-eating one either.

cordially,
Scofflaw

deise go deo · 01-12-2010 1:37am

Scofflaw wrote: »

We're really not a very seafaring nation, it seems. Nor a fish-eating one either.

cordially,
Scofflaw

I heard a very humorous story about a minister visiting a costal town in the mid 70's where there was large unemployment, when talking to one of the local fishermen, the fisherman said to the minister 'look at what we are reduced to eating' and showed him a lobster in a pot.:D

K-9 · 01-12-2010 2:39am

It should be borne in mind that the super trawlers have devastated the little fishing industry we do have.

While that is extremely sad and harrowing, look at Burtonport, Greencastle and Killybegs in my own county, utterly devastated, job losses in the 1'000's, it isn't something to base leaving the EU on.

Mr.Nice Guy · 01-12-2010 4:08am

It strikes me that a hundred years ago those who would have proposed that Ireland leave another Union would have been met with similar arguments as those on here that scoff at such a notion.

We won't leave the EU as it would require ambition and imagination that today's people simply do not possess. I would love to see it happen though, perhaps involving some arrangement with our neighbours the UK, although obviously not like the arrangement we had a hundred years ago.

Mahatma coat · 01-12-2010 5:09am

deise go deo wrote: »

I heard a very humorous story about a minister visiting a costal town in the mid 70's where there was large unemployment, when talking to one of the local fishermen, the fisherman said to the minister 'look at what we are reduced to eating' and showed him a lobster in a pot.:D

Funny you mention that, I've always asscosiated Lobster with Extreme Poverty, During the Darker patches of the eighties that was all We had to eat at home either.

Mahatma coat · 01-12-2010 5:13am

Anway, why does leaving the EU mean severing all ties with Europe, Surely Ireland and a few other countries could Remain in the EEC without having to submit to the Political Will of Brussels.

ya know, go back to the original concepts of the ECSC, Peaceful TRADE amongst Soverign nations, as opposed to this behemoth of a single PanEuropean Government

meglome · 01-12-2010 6:11am

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

It strikes me that a hundred years ago those who would have proposed that Ireland leave another Union would have been met with similar arguments as those on here that scoff at such a notion.

Sure the middle classes weren't up for it in general. And the poor were too busy surviving. Though what a union we were railroaded into joining and one which we joined with open arms, by the democratic will of the people, have to do with each other I don't know.

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

We won't leave the EU as it would require ambition and imagination that today's people simply do not possess. I would love to see it happen though, perhaps involving some arrangement with our neighbours the UK, although obviously not like the arrangement we had a hundred years ago.

Okay let's use our imagination. Most of our exports are driven by multinationals. So we pull out of the EU and most of them move, exports take a nosedive. Not only that but we owe our debts in Euro which our new embattled currency is going to be talking a hammering against. So we then owe even more money but no have no exports to pay them. Where do I sign up for this utopia.

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Anway, why does leaving the EU mean severing all ties with Europe, Surely Ireland and a few other countries could Remain in the EEC without having to submit to the Political Will of Brussels.

ya know, go back to the original concepts of the ECSC, Peaceful TRADE amongst Soverign nations, as opposed to this behemoth of a single PanEuropean Government

What political will of Brussels are we submitting to exactly?

Mahatma coat · 01-12-2010 7:02am

Meglome wrote:

What political will of Brussels are we submitting to exactly?

<cough> Lisbon</Cough>
just as an example
or any of a number of EU Led initiatives like REPS as another example

meglome · 01-12-2010 7:18am

Mahatma coat wrote: »

<cough> Lisbon</Cough>
just as an example
or any of a number of EU Led initiatives like REPS as another example

Okay so what exactly is in Lisbon that causes us to have to "submit to the Political Will of Brussels"?

Quote me the text.

Mahatma coat · 01-12-2010 7:46am

We Said NO, that didnt Suit Brussels, So we HAD to Revote, Thats not Respectin the Will of the People, thats caving in to the Will of Brussels, Dosent matter what spin you or Scofflaw or the like put on it, I guive not a Flying Fcuk for the CURRENT Content of the Treaty, as has been demonstrated already that can be subject to change at a moments notice, the Fact that IReland was MArched back to the Polling booths TWICE, on Two Seperate Referenda should be enough evidence that the European system is far from Democratic

meglome · 01-12-2010 7:57am

Mahatma coat wrote: »

We Said NO, that didnt Suit Brussels, So we HAD to Revote, Thats not Respectin the Will of the People, thats caving in to the Will of Brussels, Dosent matter what spin you or Scofflaw or the like put on it, I guive not a Flying Fcuk for the CURRENT Content of the Treaty, as has been demonstrated already that can be subject to change at a moments notice, the Fact that IReland was MArched back to the Polling booths TWICE, on Two Seperate Referenda should be enough evidence that the European system is far from Democratic

So what you're saying is there's nothing in the Lisbon treaty that does what you thought?
Should be revoke the divorce referendum result or the abortion ones since we were 'forced' to vote more than once on them too? Or is it just the treaty's you don't like?
I am curious though how you think having more democratic votes isn't more democratic. And whatever the outcome it's by default the democratic will of the electorate at that time.

Mahatma coat · 01-12-2010 8:52am

I'm saying that I havent even Mentioned any TEXT of the Treaty, The ReRuns should be enough to show that Ireland was Railroaded, the Difference between Lisbon/Nice Reruns and The Divorce/Abortion ReRuns was That the Later were called for BY the People

RandomName2 · 01-12-2010 10:57am

seamus wrote: »

The article says it all: Fishing is 82% of Greenland's exports, and the fisheries policies of the EEC at the time were not beneficial to Greenland. Therefore membership of the EEC was nonsensical from their perspective. They don't need a free market to sell their fish, because their level of fisheries cannot be produced by any old country.

Fishing is not a major export of ours nor is it ever likely to be. Pharmaceuticals and technology are our major exports, and given that any country in the world is capable of producing these items in the same volume, removing ourselves from the free market would instantly make it more expensive for companies to produce their products here, and so they would look at moving elsewhere.

Before you talk about removing ourselves from the EU, you first need to tell us what part of EU membership is crippling our economy, and how you expect going it alone is likely to improve our economy.

You seem to be advocating it as some kind of fix-all solution, but without any actual reasons why it would be so.

We could also get back our sugar industry (from scratch) which tbh would be small compensation fr leaving the free market.

However, what you said about the expenses for companises already stands' notwithstanding the depression the cost for them to stay in Ireland is too high (hence the exodus of multinationals)

meglome · 01-12-2010 12:14pm

Mahatma coat wrote: »

I'm saying that I havent even Mentioned any TEXT of the Treaty, The ReRuns should be enough to show that Ireland was Railroaded, the Difference between Lisbon/Nice Reruns and The Divorce/Abortion ReRuns was That the Later were called for BY the People

I hate to break the bad news but the government of the day are the only ones who can call a referendum. Maybe you should vote for someone who would change that.

View · 01-12-2010 12:24pm

Mahatma coat wrote: »

Dosent matter what spin you or Scofflaw or the like put on it

Nor does it matter what spin you put on it.

The Supreme Court has already addressed this issue. According to it, as the people have a free choice in each and every referendum, all referenda are just as democratic as each other.

Essentially you are sneering at a democratic decision of the people, so spare us this "I am concern for democracy" act.

Leaving the EU - A success story

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