give up more irish sovereignty to try save a failing EU?

hatrickpatrick · 25-11-2011 02:18PM

whatstherush wrote: »

Speak for yourself, if you can't parse political promises and slogans for what they are, thats your own problem. I never believed that a vote for yes would automatically deliver jobs or lead me to be conscripted into a European super army at a rate of €1.84 an hour.

Neither did I. I was deceived by the scare mongering regarding what might happen if we voted no - turns out, all of those things happened anyway, regardless. So from that point of view, my voting yes to Lisbon II was utterly pointless.

And yes I do accept that this is entirely my own mistake, but it's the manner of the referendum itself which pissed me off. That quote from Sarkozy should make any democrat rage, IMO. "The Irish must vote again". Unbelievable.

pog it · 25-11-2011 02:44PM

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

sign another eu treaty and give up more irish sovereignty to try save a failing EU or say no more to EU? discuss

It's all about one thing only- EU expansion. In a way it's actually laughable that we all discuss the pros and cons of this and that when the real issue and big picture is the long game the politicians are playing. And nobody plays a better long game than a politician with power as his motivation. They are genuinely all the same, it's why a lot of politicians from different parties are all friends once the Prime Time lights switch off. They're all taking from the same trough and are innately the same. Well, apart from an estranged few.

I spoke to a local county councillor. Just a small county council and this guy was boasting about how much power and say he had in things even as a county councillor. The mad thing is this guy is just in it for these so called powers. A genuine hard working individual with an excellent track record went up for the same job and didn't get it. Why? Cause he's not as in tune with the locals, or, well, the Irish people.

Put simply, either people start speaking up louder, start voting smarter or we/they get dumped on more and more.

jmayo · 25-11-2011 02:46PM

Permabear wrote: »

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Would this be the idea as proposed by alan greenspan, the darling of the markets, that the financial community would self regulate in their own interests ?
Hmmm that worked out well didn't it. :rolleyes:

Permabear wrote: »

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Yes but would rather that you might have some say in deciding who meddles ?

Permabear wrote: »

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And sarkozy and merkel do ?

Permabear wrote: »

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So do you think any other place is much different ?

Permabear wrote: »

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What about if we do raise taxes, but 5 years down the road we decide we want to lower them again.
If our tax policy is dictated by French and German interests that may not be possible.

Permabear wrote: »

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In 1973 was it envisaged that this was how it was going to be ?
When we joined the Euro was it envisaged that some members would fiddle the books or that we would be flooded by cheap credit at the same time we were run by a bunch of eejits who couldn't spot this. :rolleyes:

Permabear wrote: »

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FFS you are now getting as bad as the ff apologists who resort to this claim that WE ALL wanted this or that.
I and many others around here never wanted or voted for a lot of the cr** that you claim we did.
Did you ?

The system we have is far from perfect, much like the world's financial system if you care to admit it.
Otherwise care to explain why states and taxpayers have to bailout major financial institutions ?
Was it all the fault of meddling governments ? :rolleyes:

But for some reason I believe you want to dogedly hang onto one and dump the other without much discussion.

You want to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

In 1800 the Irish parliament signed the Act of Union.

Handing over our soverignty to EU institutions today is no different to what was done in the old parliament building on college green in 1800.
And see how well that worked out for us.

irishh_bob · 25-11-2011 03:11PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Not a chance in hell will I vote to give a single letter of sovereignty away, ever again.

Of course, it doesn't matter. If we don't vote the right way, we will have to vote again, in Sarkozy's own words. Even if 100% of the Irish people vote no, it will be rerun and rerun and rerun.

I was thinking this over recently and a hilarious scenario came into my head, whereby they started re-holding the referendum every 2 weeks, every second Friday, and going in to vote no became a routine matter like doing a weekly shop or buying your train tickets.

"What'd you do today?"
"Ah the usual, went to the gym, got some shopping done, voted no on Lisbon 45234346123, took the dog out for a walk and went for a pint with some of the lads. You?"

while a lot of peoples initial gut reaction will be to oppose a referendum which seeks to further centralise political descision making , when push comes to shove , people will vote with thier pockets , beit the increase in interest rates which would come about as a result of a euro exit or the cut in wages and wellfare for those who rely on the state for thier income , germany will get what it wants out of ireland

i myself will vote no

irishh_bob · 25-11-2011 03:18PM

amen wrote: »

Hell I'd vote to give it all away. As a country we have an inability to govern ourselves in a manner that is fair and equitable to all. We cannot balance our budget, we have an inability to plan, measure and follow through.

Let someone else try.

so you think if all descisions purtaining to this country were made in berlin , equality would be a greater priority ?:rolleyes:

Permabear · 25-11-2011 03:20PM

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jmayo · 25-11-2011 04:06PM

Permabear wrote: »

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You have to admit that mr greenspan was lauded and I recall people touting a future book of his as an automatic best seller.
Do you seriously think that any business can regulate itself ?
Again the US government may have decided to lower interest rates, but did they make the decisions in the banks to create fancy derivatives ultimately dependent on subprime mortgages ?

Permabear wrote: »

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Fecking hell cheer up it's Friday.

Permabear wrote: »

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Governments can move things forward.
The first government of the state decided on the Shannon scheme and that had untold positive effects.
Lemass I beliebv moved things forward, sadly after that eejit Dev held us back.
He actually predicted that the danger of semi states was that they woud not exist for the benefit of the state and it's citizens but for themselves.

Permabear wrote: »

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Sadly this is true but what or who will be the priority of the French and German leaders ?

Permabear wrote: »

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Ah come on.
I would prefer a cross between Sean Lemass, Michael O'Leary, Shane Ross, Denis Brosnan and Michael Collins, but sadly genetic engineering is not up to it yet.

Permabear wrote: »

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The pensions timebomb is going to hit the western world, bar maybe Norway.
There are also pension timebombs in the US.

Permabear wrote: »

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Ah come on we know it was obvious that a one size fits all could have problems down the road where one part of the Eurozone was way more productive and fiscally conservative than other parts.
But did anyone foresee that one county would fabricate their books or worst still that no one spotted it ?
Did anyone foresee that the banking establishment within countries could completely meltdown ?

Did you think 8 or 9 years ago that our top two high street banks would face insolvency or that the likes of Bear Sterns or Lehmans would face ruin ?

Permabear wrote: »

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Yes, but as a vehiment rabid anti ffer and anti union, I hate when people tar me as bewing a proponent of them.
It would be like me calling you a socialist.

Permabear wrote: »

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We should have left some of them collapse.
BTW it wasn't meddling politicans in so much as the leaders of the private sector capitalist powerhouses demanding that they be bailed out and threatening argameddon if they were not.

Permabear wrote: »

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Ah come on dragging Africa into this argument is like dragging in Liz Taylor into an argument against marriage.

Wibbs · 25-11-2011 04:58PM

Permabear wrote:

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+1 especially the part in bold. It got silly at times. Oh you're against the Euro, you must be anti Europe". Nope. I'm not anyway. Quite the opposite in fact.

Scofflaw wrote: »

Perhaps we should try that again, because all you've done there is repeat your two assertions that (a) things have got less democratic; and (b) anyone who thinks differently is weird.

You're definitely making an assertion, and you're definitely not backing it up - all you've done is waved your arms in the general direction of a couple of recent events in other countries. Sure, it's an opinion, but an opinion with nothing to back it isn't worth very much!

cordially,
Scofflaw

I posed a straightforward enough question I thought; "How many of the current Greek government were voted in an election? The current Italian government?". OK I'll pose it another way; have the peoples of Greece and/or Italy more or less of a say in who is governing them today, compared to a year ago? It's a pretty simple yes or no question really.

Let's look to Italy first. Monti, an ex EU commissioner has installed a new government almost entirely made up of unelected people. Regardless of personal views whether this is a good or bad thing(as I've said before) is this less democratic than the previous government? Did Italian voters have more or less of a say in this new government? Was it voted in by the Italian electorate, or brought in by pressure from the markets and the EU?

The new Greek government is similar. Plus with some real "characters" in the mix, including some from the far right Popular Orthodox party. Quite the different make up to the previously elected government. Did Greek voters have more or less of a say in this new government? Was it voted in by the Greek electorate, or brought in by pressure from the markets and the EU?

For two countries within the EU their current governments were not democratically elected and/or made up of democratically elected people. I don't see how anyone can debate this point too far. Therefore democracy in those states has taken a back seat, however temporarily. IE "things have got less democratic".

Scofflaw · 25-11-2011 04:59PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I don't actually consider parliamentary ratification or repeat referenda as undemocratic, it is the manner in which they are performed which makes them undemocratic.
For instance: When the people flatly reject a document, to openly and literally re-word it so as to remove the necessity for asking the people again, while doing everything possible to preserve the integrity of the document, is in my view profoundly undemocratic. It's bypassing the decision of the people based on technicalities. When the French and Dutch rejected the Constitution, we must assume they were rejecting the entire document, not merely the elements of it which made a referendum necessary in the first place.

There were no "elements of it which made a referendum necessary in the first place". Both the Dutch and French referendums were political decisions, not legal ones. Neither country has any legal trigger for a referendum. They are - how does one put this - not Ireland. They have different constitutional arrangements.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Likewise, the issue I have in the case of Greece is fairly simple: The government of Greece announces a referendum, and are immediately attacked on all sides by other nations over the referendum itself, and the wording of that referendum. These other nations even go as far as to propose the wording of that referendum themselves, a wording which is totally removed from the original intention of the referendum, even though as external actors they have absolutely no right whatsoever to dictate what an internal poll in a member state should look like.

Again, no. The Greek PM called for a referendum on accepting or rejecting the deal being offered by other countries, and were told by the other countries that a rejection of the deal would effectively be a rejection of the euro, because there wouldn't be another deal to keep them in it, and they couldn't stay in it bust. On that basis, the Greek Parliament and Papandreou's own party unseated Papandreou, the only person who had proposed a referendum. He never had the backing of his own Parliament to hold a referendum.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

In the case of Ireland, we were deceived by lies. I don't need to go into detail on this one as it has, in my view, been done to death on these boards, however I will simply cite two examples:

1: Brian Lenihan after Lisbon II.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sED3iApAvE

Summary for those who can't watch: Brian Lenihan claimed in an interview that "We never promised jobs" (I forget which interview but I'll link to it as soon as I remember), and you will then see many images of him holding "VOTE YES FOR JOBS" signs.

You weren't deceived by it, so I sometimes wonder who you think was stupid enough to be deceived by it. The answer appears to be the Irish electorate, which makes me wonder why you claim to be more attached to democracy than me when your opinion of the electorate is so very much lower than mine.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

2: We were given guarantees under Lisbon II about our corporate tax sovereignty, yet over the course of the last year this has come up again and again and again as something Sarkozy has attempted to destroy. While this isn't direct dishonesty with regard to Lisbon specifically, it's still incredibly dishonest. We were lead to believe that these guarantees safeguarded our corporate tax regime and that the EU would back off. This did not happen.

The guarantee is very simple, although apparently not simple enough. It says that Lisbon gave the EU no new powers over tax. If you confuse "the EU" and the legal powers of the EU with Sarkozy and the ability of another EU nation to push for something it wants, that's because you have comprehensively failed to understand what was said in the first place. Which I'm sorry to say is exactly what you've done. You don't understand the guarantee. It doesn't protect against another EU member state pushing for something.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I will also give you a simple quote from Sarkozy himself: "The Irish must vote again."
What gives him, or anyone else, the right to tell us what a democratic nation "must" do when their democratic decision doesn't go his way? Oh sure, you can say, as you have before, that Sarkozy doesn't speak for the EU, but that press conference last week on Greece where Sarkozy and Merkel implied themselves as the be all and end all of decision making in Europe begs to differ.

Well, no, it doesn't. The whole point of the EU is that France and Germany can only throw their weight around through appropriate legal channels, and with the agreement of the other Member States. Nothing, but nothing, makes France and Germany the same size as us, and nothing conceivable will.

What you're seeing at the moment is largely an inter-governmental Europe, which is what eurosceptics want - the EFSF isn't an EU fund, it's an intergovernmental one, so the bailouts are basically happening through old-fashioned 'diplomacy' and horse-trading. But this is what people who don't like the EU want more of, not less.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

It is undemocratic in the sense that the sovereign, elected government of the nation tried to do one thing, and the EU more or less piled on enough pressure to force them to change their mind or get out of office. This is fundamentally despicable. In the case of Greece, after the referendum was announced, the press conference essentially broadcast a message of "either change your decision or GTFO". And I honestly don't understand how anyone who believes in any form of democracy can be anything but appalled over how these events have played out.

In terms of Italy, I'll confess that I need to update myself on that situation, I haven't let it slip by me out of apathy but simply because there is so much going on right now all over the world and I've been playing catch up n several other stories for the last week or two. I'll read up on this one and make an argument about it as soon as I'm clued in.

But my original question still stands. How far does this autocratic overriding of national sovereignty by the EU have to go before it upsets you? Or is it simply that you don't really mind it, and it wouldn't upset you at all?

When I see Merkel and Sarkozy giving a joint press conference and painting themselves as the ultimate rulers of Europe, I see a serious, serious democratic problem there. They certainly had no right whatsoever to attempt to interfere in an internal referendum in a sovereign state.

They had every right to set the results of what the outcome would be. It's like saying that you're free to commit crimes, but society sets a penalty on doing so. Society doesn't take away your free will - the equivalent of democracy - you can choose to be stupid. Whining that someone who sets out the consequences of taking a stupid decision is interfering with your right to decide is idiotic.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Back on topic, in this thread we are talking about signing away further sovereignty to the EU. Again I ask you, if you are ok with that, then that's a perfectly valid viewpoint. I'm curious to know, however, where you draw the line, if indeed you do draw any line. At what point will it have gone too far for your liking? At what point will the Irish parliament be so powerless to decide on Irish law and Irish affairs that you can no longer tolerate it?

I think that's a separate - and interesting - question, and I'll come back to it when I'm not exhausted by consideration of your apparently limitless ability to misunderstand how constitutional democracy works in the real world.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw · 25-11-2011 05:04PM

Wibbs wrote: »

+1 especially the part in bold. It got silly at times. Oh you're against the Euro, you must be anti Europe". Nope. I'm not anyway. Quite the opposite in fact.

I posed a straightforward enough question I thought; "How many of the current Greek government were voted in an election? The current Italian government?". OK I'll pose it another way; have the peoples of Greece and/or Italy more or less of a say in who is governing them today, compared to a year ago? It's a pretty simple yes or no question really.

Let's look to Italy first. Monti, an ex EU commissioner has installed a new government almost entirely made up of unelected people. Regardless of personal views whether this is a good or bad thing(as I've said before) is this less democratic than the previous government? Did Italian voters have more or less of a say in this new government? Was it voted in by the Italian electorate, or brought in by pressure from the markets and the EU?

The new Greek government is similar. Plus with some real "characters" in the mix, including some from the far right Popular Orthodox party. Quite the different make up to the previously elected government. Did Greek voters have more or less of a say in this new government? Was it voted in by the Greek electorate, or brought in by pressure from the markets and the EU?

For two countries within the EU their current governments were not democratically elected and/or made up of democratically elected people. I don't see how anyone can debate this point too far. Therefore democracy in those states has taken a back seat, however temporarily. IE "things have got less democratic".

And my answer to all of that is that we're currently in the middle of a crisis, and the arrangements you refer to have been in place for a couple of weeks. I don't therefore see what it has to do with your claim that countries are "less democratic than 20 years ago", unless you mean specifically right now at this moment and without any necessary implications that the state of affairs will continue for any length of time worth talking about.

They're two different claims - so different in scope as to make them quite separate. I'm interested in the first claim, and certainly open to being persuaded on it, but don't see that you've done anything to back it up as yet. The temporary arrangements in the middle of a crisis aren't meaningful in terms of your first claim.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Wibbs · 25-11-2011 05:48PM

Like I said temporary arrangements in the face of crises can often turn out more permanent than originally planned or wanted. The Italian setup is due to run for 2 years. As for the Greek setup I quote Merkel "It's not enough that the troika comes and goes every three months. It would be desirable to have a permanent supervision in Greece", so how that goes down in the future may be interesting.

Less democracy over the last decades? We had many EU referendums in this country courtesy of a legal requirement that insists on one if the constitution may be affected. Now we've had and still have wittering back and forth about Lisbon A New Hope and Lisbon the EU strikes back* and no doubt it will continue, but how many other EU member states got the opportunity to vote yay or nay on that treaty? We even got the chance to vote twice on it. Which was nice. That treaty wasn't the only example where treaties were passed without going to the people of other EU countries. Clearly it was a democratic process in this country, so what does one call the lack of that process elsewhere?

Look at the ECB. A very powerful arm of the EU. Last time I looked the president was elected to the post by elected officials, but isn't exactly accountable to them. They don't publish the internal voting or minutes of meetings of the ECB too regularly. Not exactly transparent or accountable.

Lets look at the EU as a whole and european voters as a group. What electoral power do they have today if they chose to voice it? They can vote for or against European parliamentary members, but the parliament is hardly bristling with power. They could vote against local governments to affect changes in the EU, but that's hard to do in a coordinated way EU wide. As more and more decisions are made in the EU that directly affect local policies this electoral power is less than it was over local policies 20 years ago. Especially on the fiscal front. This crisis may well underline that.

My 3 cents anyway.

*couldn't resist. A c'mon it had to be done.

femur61 · 25-11-2011 08:33PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I want to see government diluted more to local government. Giving power away to larger entities does in the exact opposite direction of what (in my view) would lead to a better democracy. We should be reducing the degrees of separation between the power and the people, not adding layers between them.

Thats really parish pump politics, more Jackie Healy Raes vote in.

amacca · 25-11-2011 08:36PM

Bullseye1 wrote: »

Look at it this way can they be any worse than the gob****s we elect to run the country or those faceless civil servants who make huge accounting errors.

yes..yes it can....it can be a hell of a lot worse imo.

Wibbs · 25-11-2011 09:22PM

Indeed and it will be a lot more difficult to unelect any gobshítes in a more intregrated EU and complaining about faceless civil servants in relation to Ireland and not being concerned with equally faceless and unelected civil servants with far more power in Brussels?

recedite · 25-11-2011 09:29PM

The situation in Ireland, Italy and Greece can be characterised as a transition from Democracy to Republic. Less democracy, but ultimately better conditions for citizens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFXuGIpsdE0

Wibbs · 25-11-2011 09:51PM

Sorry R and pardon me further for being a thicko, but I'm not seeing the connection? A couple of reasons; for a start the limitation of government in such a republic. Well at the moment anyway government, in this case the EU are increasing government on certain member states. To paraphrase that vid we're more in danger of progression of a "tyranny of the elite". One that is removed from local control. Of course I'd not be so prone to hyperbole as the speaker is. Less a "tyranny of the elite"(bombastic drums) and more a tyranny of the faceless civil servant and banker(mixture of "meh" and "WTF" played on the kazoo). Plus I'd argue some of his finer points on the history of Rome.

meglome · 25-11-2011 10:12PM

HivemindXX wrote: »

I thought we had already given up our sovereignty, sold ourselves in to slavery and were under the complete control of Brussels and/or Berlin.

Pick your story and stick to it guys...

I believe from my reading of it the sovereignty went in 1973 but somehow it keeps being taken... it must be like the magic cooking pot in that regard. Just keeps giving.

The anti-EU crowd smell blood in the water and what actually shocks me is in their blind nationalism they don't give a crap of what the blowback in this mess will be for Ireland. Their smug 'we told you so' rants are long on anti-German xenophobia and short on any mechanism to fix it or how the Lisbon treaty could have caused any of this mess we are in. The Journal is awash with this type of stuff at the moment and everyone I've asked how the Lisbon treaty caused any of the mess has failed to answer.

Worse right now there are widespread calls to reject any possible new treaty without knowing what might be in it. How utterly stupid is that. These same people can't even tell me exactly what the Lisbon treaty did but based on some confirmation bias nonsense they believe it did something bad. Yeah let's teach those Germans a lesson by yet again voting No to something without understanding what it is. I have no clue what that lesson might me, other than letting them see we're a bunch of idiots. Personally I might well vote no to direct EU approval of budgets but I fully appreciate something needs to be done to stop this mess happening again.

You know I never thought I'd actually hate a word, but **** sovereignty, whatever that word means to those who abuse it. Anyone who believes a small resource poor country like Ireland at the edge of Europe can be 'sovereign' is a fool.

We put ourselves in this mess but rather than take any humble pie we've chosen to blame others. It's was Fianna Fail, the banks, Regulator, the EU, the Germans, the French... my suggestion is go look in a ****ing mirror.

Rant over.

recedite · 25-11-2011 10:21PM

Basically, as we see the populist politicians being ousted by technocrats, we are looking at carefully thought out regulations and formulae being implemented, as opposed to the last minute chaotic antics of people who are good at harvesting votes, but are out of their depth when it comes to running a country.

I agree there is also a danger in giving power to these bureaucrats, and we should keep an eye out for vested interests (bankers) having undue influence.

But the Council of Ministers retains the power to steer the EU institutions, and that is composed of the various elected (in some cases reluctantly by their parliaments) prime ministers.

Permabear · 25-11-2011 10:48PM

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Wibbs · 25-11-2011 11:00PM

meglome wrote: »

The anti-EU crowd smell blood in the water and what actually shocks me is in their blind nationalism they don't give a crap of what the blowback in this mess will be for Ireland. Their smug 'we told you so' rants are long on anti-German xenophobia and short on any mechanism to fix it or how the Lisbon treaty could have caused any of this mess we are in. The Journal is awash with this type of stuff at the moment and everyone I've asked how the Lisbon treaty caused any of the mess has failed to answer.

+1000 Personally I really bloody despair at Ze Germanz" ballsology in particular.

Personally I might well vote no to direct EU approval of budgets but I fully appreciate something needs to be done to stop this mess happening again.

Ditto.

You know I never thought I'd actually hate a word, but **** sovereignty, whatever that word means to those who abuse it. Anyone who believes a small resource poor country like Ireland at the edge of Europe can be 'sovereign' is a fool.

I'd somewhat disagree with this M. Small resource countries can be more sovereign than most(though I'd agree with your parentheses). It can be done. Sadly I'm no longer even close to sure we as a country and how we organise ourselves could do it if we had to.

We put ourselves in this mess but rather than take any humble pie we've chosen to blame others. It's was Fianna Fail, the banks, Regulator, the EU, the Germans, the French... my suggestion is go look in a ****ing mirror.

Again I'd somewhat disagree with this. Too often in this debate, folks run to one side or the other. I'd lay somewhere in the middle. Blame runs both ways. One most always legislate for the unwise, even the idiots, sadly both of the aforementioned were in charge and all too often put in charge by their fellows. I may throw my eyes up to heaven at some eejit frittering his or her money away on empty credit and the empty promise of more where that came from, but I reserve equal eye throwing for those charged with regulating that. In essence, we've all got our own mirrors to look in.

View · 25-11-2011 11:22PM

Wibbs wrote: »

For two countries within the EU their current governments were not democratically elected and/or made up of democratically elected people.

I think you'll find that the governments of both Greece and Italy were democratically elected in accordance with the provisions of their respective constitutions.

It really would help if posters could respect the democratic decisions of the other member states...

catser6767 · 25-11-2011 11:32PM

Maura74 wrote: »

I feel it is the only way to go...governments of the default countries have proven that they are incompetent and corrupt regarding running their country. At least this way we should get some control how the money is spent and will do away with the top pensions as well as the ex-politicians and retired one that get outrageous benefits.

Hope the EU reform will clean up the mess the PIGS are in.

Really dont get why people still working in Government jobs are getting pensions. Until something is done from the top down we will never get public spending under control.

Wibbs · 25-11-2011 11:44PM

View wrote: »

I think you'll find that the governments of both Greece and Italy were democratically elected in accordance with the provisions of their respective constitutions.

I think you'll find that their current governments were anything but democratically elected, unless our definition of same differs widely. I suspect they might. The current government of Italy... Name three members charged with ministerial posts who were elected by the people of Italy. Just three would be nice. The whole cabinet would be even nicer.

It really would help if posters could respect the democratic decisions of the other member states...

Now you're joking surely, or being ironic in some way I'm missing?

Wibbs · 25-11-2011 11:46PM

catser6767 wrote: »

Really dont get why people still working in Government jobs are getting pensions. Until something is done from the top down we will never get public spending under control.

Whole different discussion/thread methinks.

View · 26-11-2011 01:34AM

Wibbs wrote: »

I think you'll find that their current governments were anything but democratically elected, unless our definition of same differs widely. I suspect they might. The current government of Italy... Name three members charged with ministerial posts who were elected by the people of Italy. Just three would be nice. The whole cabinet would be even nicer.

Now you're joking surely, or being ironic in some way I'm missing?

You are missing something - namely that in Italy, just as here, it is the Parliament, not the people, who "elect" the governments (I say "elect" because the members of a government are actually formally appointed to office by the Presidents). A government's mandate as such comes from the Parliament and can be dismissed when the Parliament so wishes.

This is the standard system used in Parliamentary democracies subject to various minor variations on the theme. Whether or not the members of a government need be members of the Parliament is a different issue as is whether they need be directly elected by the people. In addition, various member states require Members of Parliament to either resign from Parliament or to suspend their membership on becoming Ministers (The former example admittedly uses a Presidential system).

Hence, particularly as our own constitution also allows individuals to become Ministers without being directly elected by the people beforehand, the democratic decisions of the other member states as to whom forms their governments should be respected.

meglome · 26-11-2011 01:50AM

Wibbs wrote: »

I'd somewhat disagree with this M. Small resource countries can be more sovereign than most(though I'd agree with your parentheses). It can be done. Sadly I'm no longer even close to sure we as a country and how we organise ourselves could do it if we had to.

I suppose the problem often boils down to what exactly is sovereign. Most of the people that seem to use the word have some fairytale meaning for it. They want to hark back to some older Ireland that as far as I can tell didn't exist. Personally I'm happy we share certain things with the EU and I really believe that has been to our benefit. I appreciate how much sharing will differ from person to person and it's only the fantasists that I have an issue with.

Wibbs wrote: »

Again I'd somewhat disagree with this. Too often in this debate, folks run to one side or the other. I'd lay somewhere in the middle. Blame runs both ways. One most always legislate for the unwise, even the idiots, sadly both of the aforementioned were in charge and all too often put in charge by their fellows. I may throw my eyes up to heaven at some eejit frittering his or her money away on empty credit and the empty promise of more where that came from, but I reserve equal eye throwing for those charged with regulating that. In essence, we've all got our own mirrors to look in.

Well all along I've been saying in here that we need to look at ourselves. And that certainly has not been popular with some people. See I suppose I believe that as a nation we got exactly what we wanted. Obviously we didn't care at the time to wonder about the consequences of that we wanted. I am just surprised that so many people now say they didn't want it, when they clearly did. In a different country with a different attitude our mess would not have happened, enough people may have asked was it wise to be so giveaway. Enough people may have appreciated their consistent demands, in many cases their downright unreasonable demands for more could really hurt in the long run. Sure not everyone is equally to blame for what happened but I've seen nothing that makes me think we didn't ask for it.

View wrote: »

It really would help if posters could respect the democratic decisions of the other member states...

It's something that's cropping up a lot now and did back in the Lisbon debates. People don't seem to have any problem stating that our system is more democratic and being insistent that it be done the same way in other countries. Totally missing the point that our way isn't their way and it is undemocratic for us to demand they do things differently. There are many flavours of democracy and our way is just one way, not the way.

Wibbs wrote: »

I think you'll find that their current governments were anything but democratically elected, unless our definition of same differs widely. I suspect they might. The current government of Italy... Name three members charged with ministerial posts who were elected by the people of Italy. Just three would be nice. The whole cabinet would be even nicer.

It depends on what you mean by democratically elected. Given the structures and histories of those countries I'm personally happy to say they were democratically elected. If you're saying that not all of them were directly elected by the people then no they weren't. However that would imply that it's not perfectly normal in democracies that people are not directly elected to the position they hold.

Scofflaw · 26-11-2011 08:42AM

Wibbs wrote: »

Like I said temporary arrangements in the face of crises can often turn out more permanent than originally planned or wanted. The Italian setup is due to run for 2 years. As for the Greek setup I quote Merkel "It's not enough that the troika comes and goes every three months. It would be desirable to have a permanent supervision in Greece", so how that goes down in the future may be interesting.

That is, you're predicting that for the next while those countries which put themselves in a position where they have to give up some freedom of action have less democracy because they have less freedom of action.

While I wouldn't argue with that - it's very logical - the comparison with 20 years ago seems irrelevant, as if this was the outcome of some longer erosion.

Wibbs wrote: »

Less democracy over the last decades? We had many EU referendums in this country courtesy of a legal requirement that insists on one if the constitution may be affected. Now we've had and still have wittering back and forth about Lisbon A New Hope and Lisbon the EU strikes back* and no doubt it will continue, but how many other EU member states got the opportunity to vote yay or nay on that treaty? We even got the chance to vote twice on it. Which was nice. That treaty wasn't the only example where treaties were passed without going to the people of other EU countries. Clearly it was a democratic process in this country, so what does one call the lack of that process elsewhere?

It's also democracy, done differently. Really, the idea that everyone has to do what we do or else they're not democratic is the most amazingly parochial one. And given the major, major deficiencies in our version of democracy, it's also very silly.

Wibbs wrote: »

Look at the ECB. A very powerful arm of the EU. Last time I looked the president was elected to the post by elected officials, but isn't exactly accountable to them. They don't publish the internal voting or minutes of meetings of the ECB too regularly. Not exactly transparent or accountable.

They're exactly the same as any other central bank - the theory behind independent and opaque central banking is well known.

What you're missing is that the parameters of their actions and mission are set democratically.

Wibbs wrote: »

Lets look at the EU as a whole and european voters as a group. What electoral power do they have today if they chose to voice it? They can vote for or against European parliamentary members, but the parliament is hardly bristling with power. They could vote against local governments to affect changes in the EU, but that's hard to do in a coordinated way EU wide. As more and more decisions are made in the EU that directly affect local policies this electoral power is less than it was over local policies 20 years ago. Especially on the fiscal front. This crisis may well underline that.

The parliament is a good deal less powerless than most people think - it doesn't show up very much in the crisis (which is all the media is currently interested in) because that's being handled intergovernmentally through funds like the EFSF and through negotiations (or pre-negotiations) on changes to the treaties.

The reason the parliament has always taken a back seat to the Council, though, is obvious, at least in a constitutional sense. The Council represents the governments of the Member States, who are themselves the elected representatives of the various peoples of the EU. The Parliament, therefore, is only required as an additional democratic control to the extent that such national control is inappropriate - and to the extent that it is, the Parliament has been strengthened by successive treaties, even though that requires the Member State governments to vote to allow another body control over them.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw · 26-11-2011 08:58AM

Wibbs wrote: »

I think you'll find that their current governments were anything but democratically elected, unless our definition of same differs widely. I suspect they might. The current government of Italy... Name three members charged with ministerial posts who were elected by the people of Italy. Just three would be nice. The whole cabinet would be even nicer.

No, it wouldn't - you're using a very poor definition of democracy there, and making the mistake of thinking that the way we do things here is more democratic, when it's less. I posted this on another thread, but it's relevant here:

Scofflaw wrote:

Hayte wrote:

How can you believe in democracy in one breath whilst giving up a critical part of it in the next by ceding national fiscal policy to an unelected technocrat?

Because what makes a Minister - or more broadly the government - democratically accountable is not the fact that he or she is personally elected. In fact, because constituency elections are largely determined by local issues, that's about the last thing that works.

What makes a government or Minister democratically accountable is that he/she/it can be appointed or dismissed as a government or Minister by either the electorate or their representatives.

It doesn't matter whether the person concerned has been personally elected or not (if anything, it's slightly better if they're not) - all that matters is that if they're not up to scratch at their job they can be dismissed. That's what democratic accountability is - a system of holding the government and its Ministers to account by democratically elected representatives.

We don't have such a system. Instead, we elect a bunch of local representatives, and the head of the winning party then appoints some of those representatives to be Ministers - the Ministers in Cabinet are "the government". Courtesy of the whip system and the party's control of appointments, the party boss and his inner circle of favourites do not in fact have to answer to the Parliament, because they automatically control Parliament. So there is no individual democratic accountability for Ministers, and barely any government accountability, in the Irish system. You can be an utter disaster as a Minister, and still get re-elected as a TD - and still get re-appointed as a Minister even though you're a cretin because you're part of the party boss' circle of favourites. You can be a disaster as a government, and still be the majority party in the next parliament because people like your local representatives as local representatives.

And even if the Dáil were more independent, it would be largely meaningless, because the Dáil cannot unseat an elected TD, because they cannot override the mandate of the people who put him there.

So even if, say, Mary Coughlan or Conor Lenihan is utterly useless, they can be appointed Minister by pure favour of the Fianna Fáil leader, can't be dismissed by the Oireachtas, can't be dismissed by the electorate, and cannot be put in a position where they are ineligible for a return to a position as Minister at the whim of the Fianna Fáil leader even if they were put out of office after some monstrous gaffe. Instead of a system of democratic accountability, therefore, what we (and the UK) have is the press, who do a better or worse job of filling in the position of democratic oversight that by rights belongs to the Oireachtas - but they're not democratically accountable themselves.

That's the thing, you see - Ireland has a stupid and badly bent system. Holding it up as a measure of other countries can make one think that the other countries are in some way undemocratic, but the problem is the measure, not the measured. We are the ones who have it arseways.

So if you take, for example, the European Commission, that's a properly accountable body in a formally and constitutionally meaningful way. It's answerable to the European Parliament, who are separate from it, not appointed by it nor they by it - but they have the power to dismiss it if they feel it's not doing its job. Ideally, individual Commissioners should also be dismissable, but since the Commission is a collegiate body anyway, that's not strictly necessary. So the fact that they're appointed isn't important, because they're democratically accountable to our elected representatives. If, on the other hand, they were themselves elected, then they would be answerable only to whatever constituency elected them, and would have a mandate which the Parliament could not set aside.

So I have no issues at all handing decision-making over to democratically accountable technocrats. I have a problem handing over decision-making to a bunch of ignorant gombeens who get elected because they fix the roads in their constituency and are appointed as Ministers by their party boss on the basis of their prowess as party fund-raisers and bootboys.

You're using the bent stick of Irish 'democracy' to claim other countries aren't straight. It's entirely wrong. We have a less accountable system than a system in which unelected non-party Ministers are properly accountable to elected representatives.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Wibbs · 26-11-2011 10:23AM

Scofflaw wrote: »

That is, you're predicting that for the next while those countries which put themselves in a position where they have to give up some freedom of action have less democracy because they have less freedom of action.

Next while? Previously you suggested "that the state of affairs will continue for any length of time worth talking about". As I've pointed out for Italy it's penciled in for 2 years and with Greece Merkel has publicly stated "permanent supervision".

It's also democracy, done differently. Really, the idea that everyone has to do what we do or else they're not democratic is the most amazingly parochial one. And given the major, major deficiencies in our version of democracy, it's also very silly.

Missing, nay avoiding the point as per usual when it comes to the EU. I gave our dealings with EU treaties as an example. At no point have I claimed Irish democracy is overall the yardstick to judge against others. It would be "silly" to do so.

OK let's simplify this even further and remove the country labels out of the equation. EU treaties ultimately affect all member states and their citizenry. They're very important documents mapping out the future of the European Union. While we're at it, just to ward off the "no/yes to ______ insert EU Treaty here" nitpicking, let's also remove the notion of whether this is a good or bad thing. If country A holds a referendum over these important documents and country B doesn't, country B gives less input by the electorate on the course of the EU and that countries membership than Country A. Country B's citizens have quite simply less of a say.

They're exactly the same as any other central bank - the theory behind independent and opaque central banking is well known.

What you're missing is that the parameters of their actions and mission are set democratically.

Again I think we differ on the level of democracy and the distance from the citizenry of the EU involved. When the head of the CSB Jean Claude Trichet is keen for higher levels of centralised EU government http://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/key/date/2011/html/sp110404.en.html on the back of this crisis, more input by the citizens of the EU states would be nice, not less.

Lets imagine the call for more centralised EU fiscal control is answered and again let us remove the debate over whether this is a good or bad thing. How much of an input will the EU citizenry have over such changes? Certainly one could argue that it's the same locally if a local government introduces a fiscal policy that the people take issue with. The major difference being that in the local environment the people can choose to vote out said government at the next general election and the new crowd can change said policy. That's a magnitude more difficult a thing to do in the context of the EU. If it came down to a new or rejigged treaty, history has shown us that only some jurisdictions will put that treaty to the local citizens to vote yay or nay. Now if the citizens of that jurisdiction take issue with that they can vote out that party next time around, but the treaty will have already been signed and there's little option of turning back. like I said before "what electoral power do they have today if they chose to voice it? They can vote for or against European parliamentary members, but the parliament is hardly bristling with power. They could vote against local governments to affect changes in the EU, but that's hard to do in a coordinated way EU wide. As more and more decisions are made in the EU that directly affect local policies this electoral power is less than it was over local policies 20 years ago."

easychair · 26-11-2011 10:39AM

I'm afraid all the politicians have shown, both at national and EU level, is that their ability to plan is disasterous (eg the Euro), the ability to see problems which are obvious to many others curiously absent (rg the irish property bubble), and their ability to plan to get out of the mess we all find ourselves in has seen years of inaction followed by proposals which are inept or useless. All their grand plans for "The Firewall of EFSF" then "ECB rescue" + "Euro bonds" have come to nothing, and the metaphor of Nero fiddling while Rome burns has never seemed more apt.

The Euro zone now plunges back into recession, national government can't do anything because they are squeezed into the straight jacket of the Euro, and the EU lurches from inaction to suggestions for one ponzi scheme after another.

If one thing is evident from this crises, it is that the EU is bankrupt economically, politically and morally. The EU parliament is silent all but for to hear the members signing their expenses forms.

The problem is that national governments are also bankrupt economically, politically and morally.

give up more irish sovereignty to try save a failing EU?

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