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About LinkBacksIn terms of money from Europe per capita....pretty much all of them.Originally Posted by The Caped Cod
In terms of money from Europe per capita....pretty much all of them.
Never let the best be the enemy of the good.
And now, are we still there? Will we be there in a year? But hen I think we can both agree that Lisbon had nothing to do with that.
"Authority that cannot be questioned is tyranny and I will not accept tyranny, any tyranny, even that of heaven."
- Terry Pratchett
This point could well be argued. As the Yanks say "Money talks, and **************************************** walks". When our bubble economy was in over drive we were important in Europe. That is not the case anymore and it will be a long, long time before we are again. It wasn't Lisbon that did this, nor will Lisbon reverse it.
"Authority that cannot be questioned is tyranny and I will not accept tyranny, any tyranny, even that of heaven."
- Terry Pratchett
In terms of key positions EU positions we are too. EU Ambassador to the US and head of the EU Civil Service are both Irish and an Irishman currently has a very good position on the Commission as well.
"Give us the future, we've had enough of YOUR past, Give us back our country, to live in, to grow in and to love..."
The French have the IMF with Strauss-Kahn and the ECB with Trichet. But we have the rubberstamp. Woopee!!
Saying that an Irish people have htese positions in noway infers Ireland has importance. Did they get the job because they were Irish, or because the Irish government insisted. We once had our embassey in the US, now we're on the way to somekind of rotating leadership for "Union" embassey. Kind of sad really, but such is the people's choice. I wonder what the effect on Visas will be. I'd imagine that once Europe is officially a Legal entity State, the US will stop to negotiate individual deals with member states but will negotiate directly with the "Union".
"Authority that cannot be questioned is tyranny and I will not accept tyranny, any tyranny, even that of heaven."
- Terry Pratchett
I meant we were the heart or the conscience of Europe, at least while we weilded our vote. Money is Bull$hit. This country was already fecked from the last 10 years of it. FF served us up their pragmatic $hit sandwich speciality....and we gobbled it up.
We had a chance to take a stand for a core European principle: Real Representative Democracy. Lisbon is a major bureaucratic power grab, that even the citizens of the larger countries don't want.
If you wanted a Europe that served corporate interests you voted YES.
If you wanted a Europe that served citizens interests you voted NO.
Anyone who voted for this thing is a feckin idiot.
I'm embarrassed to be Irish.
I'm not embarrassed to be Irish. We were given an opportunity that the British electorate would have loved.
However, I am disappointed and..angry. There is such a lack of accountability and transparency in the EU, which the enforcement of the Lisbon Treaty will truely exacerbate.
Right. It really is the long game that counts here. By making an untterly unfalsifiable claim, it will be possible to argue that any future job announcement from anywhere is because of Lisbon. And if, as I think may happen, the EU evolves to a state where we must sacrifice more soverignty, we will be told again that if we don't fall into line and stay close to the heart of Europe, we will be screwed. The great virtue of the fear based argument is that it is easily to recycle, impossible to verify and hits at the things people value most of all. Nixon-style campaigning has come to Europe.
So we are in the ''Heart of Europe'' ... but for how long ? at what point will we refuse to surrender our constitution ? Wont some states press ahead with enhanced cooperation anyway ??? Are we going to go along with everything those states want ? The way its heading is towards a United States of Europe. When we first joined the people thought it was a free trading block of countries but a USE seems to be the eventual goal. Do we really want to end up like a state in America where the feds come in and arrest people even if the local state legalises something according to its own laws ? California is one example.
Taking this heart of europe concept logically means we basically go along with everything the Eurocrats want regardless of whether the people want it or not. So how far do we go with the EU ? We were guaranteed an EFTA type situation anyway regardless of what we did. I want to know how far is too far for our government ?
I think this heart has heart disease and it is inoperable
