Irish Election - Coverage of Irish Politics, News and Current Affairs

Even before the Irish people’s democratic decision to reject the fatally-flawed Lisbon Treaty, (which would have deepened the democratic-deficit in Europe still further), the source of Libertas funding was a bane of “yes” campaigners. To the elite, the possibility of the ‘mainstream’ parties being so decisively outspent by this upstart pro-business [...]

Its the same as number 1 and many subsequent solutions, the Indo has the leaked idea (is it really news though? - its been around for ages as the only solution). It beats the deadlines but only just.
THE guarantee of holding on to a European Commissioner will be the carrot for a [...]

The WTO talks are a little like the Tribunals. For the most part, progress is confined to a tiny box on page 8 of the Irish Times or Indo unless the leading lights drag it up the agenda. While both are meaningful in themselves and have great symbolic (on the perception of cleansing politics or [...]

It has been noted in a few places over the weekend that the grand alliance on Europe, the three main parties plus the Greens and PDs, was beginning to take some strain. Yesterday’s poll released by Open Europe seems to provide further evidence of that strain. Labour appear to be distancing themselves from any “Tallaght [...]

The Sleep of Sarkozy produces Sarkozy…

Usually not a fan, but Diarmaid Ferriter’s in The Examiner today is well worth the read.
Some of the end-of-term report cards will make for sorry reading, with the exception perhaps of the Green party leader, John Gormley, who has made the transition from the opposition benches to cabinet with singular ease and who is basking [...]

It may be a catchy means of getting around the 9 and 15 month deadlines that seem to be naturally occuring to the EU leadership, but rerunning Lisbon next June in conjunction with European Parliament and Local elections has been ruled out by most parties. Not least because another ‘no’ vote could seep over into [...]

The following is my translation of an article in today’s Le Monde about proposals to get another Irish referendum. It is quite interesting in the kind of manoevering it reveals and also there is an interesting little comment at the end about the way the commission is evolving into something less than desireable. The article [...]

I got this email from Georg Pichler of rigardi.org and I thought I would pass it on.
As you might have heard the governmenting parties, Social Democrats (SPOE) and Conservatives (OEVP) have decided to end their coalition. After 1 1/2 years of constant quarrel and hardly any progress, the Social Democrats have decided to switch their [...]

BBC Radio 4’s Today in Parliament last night did a segment on Nicolas Sarkozy’s speech to the European Parliament in which he outlined the agenda of the French EU Council Presidency.  It begins 19 minutes into the program (Listen again/download).   Included in the post-speech interviews is Kathy Sinnott MEP, who says that she has offered [...]

The No Campaign failed to make the Abortion issue a major reason to vote no. But they certainly convinced the rest of Europe again. And yet again we have another person rather then reading the Eu-barometer results but let there own bias dictate their views. Sylvie Goulard, the president of the French section of [...]

If Ireland took the most democratic route to ratification, arguably Poland did the opposite. The parliament elected by the people voted to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. But ratification could not procede because a single person was against it - their President. The President says he won’t sign because the Irish voted No. That cannot be [...]

So the Polish President says he will not sign.
Polish president Lech Kaczynski has said he will not sign the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, saying it was pointless after Irish voters rejected it in a referendum last month.
“For the moment, the question of the treaty is pointless,” Mr Kaczynski was quoted as saying in the online version [...]

Irish Economic Growth contraction. From Irish Times
Economic growth in the Republic shrank by 1.5 per cent between January and March this year, according to data released by the Central Statistics Office this morning.
Growth rates recorded for the Republic during the first quarter 2008 showed that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) contracted by 1.5 per cent, [...]

This caused a Storm in Sweden recently.
Swedish media have erroneously reported that the EU plans to register and bill all bloggers, setting off a firestorm of reaction in the country.
And there is a lesson to all of us in the responsibility of the media there. But this part caught my eye.
Speaking to the EUobserver, Ms [...]

I am not sure if this is Austria playing hard ball with Brussels but Austrian chancellor, Alfred Gusenbauer has said that if the Treaty text is changed for Ireland then Austria would have a referendum as well.
Also
Hannes Swoboda, vice-president of the Socialists in the EU assembly, told Der Standard newspaper: “It is not possible [...]