The European Union was never designed to deal with the current global financial crisis.
The initial idea was to create a loose confederation of states that agreed with and cooperated on a range of mutual interests like finance, environment, trade, law and so on.
The creation of a single currency was a step too far for such a loose confederation.
It was overly optimistic to think that a large group of nations with widely divergent interests, expectations and political sensitivities could all operate as a single unit within a single currency.
If the single currency never existed the various countries of the EU would have struggled through the current crisis with varying degrees of success and failure.
Ireland, for example, would have been destroyed while Germany would have remained strong.
That’s all academic now because the Euro has become not just critical for individual European countries but is also a critical factor in the health of the global financial system.
The decision by the majority of European countries to forge ahead with a separate treaty was the only alternative to a complete collapse of the Euro and perhaps the entire EU project.
Ireland should now do everything possible to ensure it signs up to the new treaty.
That means no drawn out referendum campaign and no quibbling about retaining our corporation tax at the present rate.
The reality is as simple as it is brutal.
The UK, although a big shark, now finds itself alone in a big sea full of other big sharks only too eager to gobble it up if necessary.
Ireland, as a tiny fish, in that big sea full of sharks should do all in its power to ensure it remains under the protection of the large group of European sharks.
Well, my respect for Public Inquiry just fell to zero.
The perilous state of the country is largely due to the insistence of EU partners for the state to backstop reckless lending by EU (and Irish) banks.
That same EU appears today to be less of a collective of independent nations than a group of protectorates ruled by Germany and France. And you want us to sign up to their imperial edicts, to a ‘union’ where Ireland would have no independent control of its finances? (I know, we’re virtually in that position already.)
Above all, you don’t see any need to ask the people’s approval for such a change in sovereignty?
It’s not too late for Ireland to get out of this morass with some dignity and, crucially, its independence. That might mean to repudiate the banks’ debts and leave the euro, but it will preserve our independence. Morgan Kelly has written about ways to control our deficit so that we would not be reliant on selling bonds abroad.
It wouldn’t be that simple, of course, and we would need to change many structures (eg, abolish quango’s, Nama, reduce public pay, pensions, and gombeenery – all good things!). Perhaps we need some Icelanders to show us the way.
It’s really surprising to hear you echo the ominous stance of the EU in rejecting the democratic process.
It’s also absurd to read your scare-mongering language – “Ireland would be destroyed”, are you taking lessons from Gov?
Shame on your short-sightedness.