Do The Irish Really Need To Save Europe From Itself?
Jun 9th, 2008 by Eats Wombats
It will be an interesting week politically in these islands. The Labour government looks set to lose a vote on Wednesday on detaining terrorist suspects for up to 42 days.
On Thursday the Irish, alone, about 1% of the EU’s population, will vote in a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Traditionally, the Irish have been more pro Europe than many of their fellow Europeans. The tabloid press explanation in the UK is that Ireland’s prosperity is the result of EU handouts.
Economists tell a different story. Petr Mach, e.g., a Czech economist, says
The real cause of their rapid economic growth was tax and public expenditure cuts in 1989, and not the membership in the EU.
He goes on to suggest that the Irish have out-negotiated the rest of the EU, though for a Czech to complain that that Irish divided their country into two regions so that one, with less than the European average income, could continue to receive EU funds seems a trifle ironic.
The latest World Bank Development Indicators put Irish per capita gross national income ahead of that of the US, never mind the UK. It’s time for the Irish to start paying for Eastern Europe, who, The Economist recently argued, joined in the nick of time for everybody’s sake.
This weekend the British press appeared unanimous in its pleas to the Irish to vote against the treaty and save Europe from itself. Today’s Independent, however, owned by Irish entrepreneur Tony O’Reilly, takes a different view.
It will be a close result; it may depend on the turnout and in turn on the weather. Conservative MEP and Telegraph blogger Dan Hannan, in quite a good article in the The Spectator, argues that Ireland’s EU referendum will be no walkover — which is why he notes on his blog that
Irish ayes are not smiling
What a pity that the Irish Times, with Europe watching and with 83% of readers polled on its own web site indicating people don’t have enough information about the treaty, wants €7 for access to what may be as good an exposition of the issues as is available. What a sorry lack of imagination not to get access to this sponsored if it really couldn’t be provided as a public service.
Sooner or later it seems likely that Britain will vote to leave the EU. That will be an interesting disengagement. Most Britons don’t yet realize the extent to which British law is already influenced by European law, the popular press tending to focus on alleged Eurocrat edicts on straight bananas and the like.
The 2006 Companies Act, e.g., ends the primacy of the old Anglo-Saxon model, prevalent in American and the UK, of a company being accountable primarily to its shareholders. Directors are now legally required to take account of environmental and social interests in their decision making.
It will be years before the legal ramifications are clear, but the European consensus is that the business of business is not just business, as Milton Friedman famously claimed.
Changing demographics are pulling America in this direction, according to another Spectator article, away from its supposed laissez faire traditions and toward a more inclusive social model.
Ireland’s and all of Europe’s demographics are changing too, more than many realize. More and more people are voting with their feet, and this won’t change any time soon.
Unfortunately we Brits are perfectly capable of chopping off our nose to spite our face. Leaving would be like Texas leaving the States.
The main argument for being in the EU is an economic one - with next to no manufacturing base, do we really want to have to pay import/export levies on all our goods and services? In an increasingly global market we are too small and, dare I say insignificant to go it alone. The French & Germans aren’t too happy with the 2006 directives either - too capitalist a business model.
In my view the EU does not YET go far enough. I know that you too have lived and worked abroad, and outside the EU I wouldn’t expect tax systems to be equivalent to the UK. However, even with Schengen, we pay vastly more tax in France that we would back home and the thing that rankles most is the loss of suffrage.
If we want to accept free movement of goods, services and yes that also means people, we will have to accept that rates of taxation, especially VAT become more closely aligned, and that it just ain’t fair to deprive an EU citizen of the right to vote in their chosen country of residence, with the proviso that they have only one - at the moment it would be like saying to a Texan that they can’t vote for the President because they now live in Florida.
I would hate to see Europe become anything like as homogenized as America, but… I agree. Japan manages quite well as an offshore island sufficient unto itself and I think Britain could do so if it chose to. Who needs a nose?!
Anyway, I am in favour of competition for good governance and with people voting with their feet, as I did long ago.
http://wombatdiet.net/2007/06/12/satin-jimjams-and-the-nascent-european-sphere-wooo-with-gusto/
The 2006 act I referred to was the companies act in the UK, not any EU directive.