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BREXIT AND MIGRATION will dominate the agenda for the next two days as EU leaders meet in Brussels.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and European Affairs Minister Helen McEntee will attend the briefings.
EU leaders are expected to express disappointment at the lack of progress to date from the British side in the Brexit negotiations, including on the backstop. They are also expected to urge the British government to intensify negotiations so that a withdrawal agreement can be drawn up before October’s European Council meeting.
In a statement, the Taoiseach said:
“Time is running out for the Withdrawal Agreement to be concluded satisfactorily by the October European Council. I expect EU leaders to send a strong message to the UK that negotiations with the Task Force need to intensify. The lack of progress in the negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement has been very disappointing. We still need to see detailed proposals from the UK on how it intends to deliver on the clear commitments it made in December and March.”
The bloc’s 27 leaders meeting without Britain will largely work off proposals set down with great pomp by France and Germany, known as the Meseberg Declaration, after the site of a recent meeting between Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron.
Europe’s twin engines of EU unity, France and Germany make up nearly half of the eurozone economy. But smaller members, led by the Netherlands, have voiced their irritation at having the EU’s future announced from on high by the bloc’s biggest powers.
Deep divisions are expected to surface over migration, with warnings that failure to act could fuel authoritarian and populist movements.
While the bloc has drastically curbed the flow of migrants since the 2015 crisis, it remains split over how to cut arrivals further, and over what to do with people once they do reach Europe’s shores.
With © – AFP, 2018
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EU =
- bureaucratic nightmare,
- almost non existant borders,
- suppression of democracy,
- alarming levels of waste and duplication,
- rampant corruption,
- more non-compliance actions against Germany than any other member,
- France also in the top 4 for non-compliance investigations,
- non respect of its own Treaty,
- discriminatory policies against developing countries keeping them poor,
- rules stitched up to benefit and enrich a few powerful members,
- control by Germany and France that marginalises others members.
…..what’s not to like?
@The Quare Fella: of course Germany has the highest levels of non-compliance, it is the largest country where the most administration is done. I reckon they eat more bowls of cereal, too.
The EU also means highly strengthened human rights and particularly workers rights; most of our consumer rights come from the EU too and believe it or nit they’re great; you may have heard if the GDPR, the emails were a pain, but it will protect your personal data for decades; free movement of people is great, being able to travel to the Alps, or to the South of Italy, or to Amsterdam or Paris visa free, without being ripped off on currency exchange is amazing. There’s more to like.
The fact is people like you blame the EU for everything that goes wrong and don’t give iy credit for all the positives.
@The Quare Fella: no EU countries have gone to war with each other since its formation, either. Which is nice. There were thousands of years of wars before that. Culminated in two well known blow outs called world war one and world war two, you’ve probably heard of them. It’s nice to not have to do that now.
@Conor Paddington: don’t forget the E11 form. Total lifesaver.
@Conor Paddington: ah yes but what have the Roman’s ever done for us eh ?
@Dave Hammond:
They left us alone!
@The Quare Fella: let go back to a Eurpoe with civil wars breaking out all over the place. That would be better.
@The Quare Fella: They always have nicely cut fresh flowers in the reception areas. Wonder how much they’ll spend on new EU flags, this year, next year, year after that. With fewer of those little gold stars on them.
@Conor Paddington: “no EU countries have gone to war with each other since its formation”
I submit that Nuclear weapons are the reasons no EU countries have to war with each other.
@The Quare Fella: hey check out page 29 of today’s Irish Independent, Report that Merkel may lose power because 1.6m migrants secured their place in Germany since 2015. The CDU-CSU alliance is falling apart because one side (Merkel) is too liberal with unlimited open border policy, the other wants a sanity check. It’s about resources & € I suppose, the Germans are much better at that than the daft Irish governments . Looks like from next week any migrants wanting to land in Germany are going to be rejected at the border if they have already registered in another EU state. Meanwhile we have our potty government trying to suckle up to Merkel who might have to fave another election (already) a joke !
@Jack Cass: true, although it’s only the Uk and France that have nuclear arms. It’s really becaue of NATO and the Warsaw pact.
And the EU was pathetically powerless to stop the wars in the fomer Yugoslavia along its very border. Only looked on and waited for the US to do something
“But smaller members, led by the Netherlands, have voiced their irritation at having the EU’s future announced from on high by the bloc’s biggest powers.”
So a Union of equals then?…..not.
“Deep divisions are expected to surface over migration, with warnings that failure to act could fuel authoritarian and populist movements.”
One in four EU countries is run by a so-called “populist” governemnt: either anti-austerity far Left or anti- mass immigration far Right, and they’re increasing.
Swdedens’ anti- mass immigration Sweden Democrats has surged into the lead ahead of the country’s September general election, with a promise to have a referendum on its membership pf the EU.
Next month Austria takes over the rolling six-month presidency of the EU, promising to make immigration the centre-piece of its presidency.
“Some countries think that they act in a more moral and better way than others, that western European countries sometimes look down on eastern European countries.”
Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz.
And on the mess of sorting out immigration to the EU, which Brussels is doing a great job with….
“We would be ready and do everything necessary to protect our borders,” Kurz told German daily Bild. “That would mean securing the border on the Brenner Pass and other locations.”
@Conor Paddington: With the exception of the visa free travel, shouldn’t the other benefits have been implemented by enlightened governance of individual countries anyway, or as citizens do we have a dependancy on a bloc to enact it.
@wattsed: they certainly should be, but I don’t think they would be. For instance, the EU has been making the use of hour contracts increasingly more difficult, with the goal of abolishing them. You can be sure that once the UK crashes out this will be rolled back entirely by the Tories. On consumer protection, we wouldn’t be as protected and we definitely wouldn’t have any protection for cross-border transactions.
@Jack Cass: having a joint economic interest is a deterrent against going to war. That’s what the EU is…. though, it does also have its roots in the “Euopean Atomic Enercy Community” formed in 1957.
@Conor Paddington: Giving the EU credit for peace in Europe is completely disingenuous. It was half a million US troops stationed in Germany and the Nato alliance that kept the peace. The EU couldn’t even prevent genocide on it’s doorstep.
@Mack: It’s not disingenuous, it was the express reason the European Coal and Steel Community formed, and it was encouraged in the early days by the US for just that readon. Of course there have been other factors, but it is silly to deny tge EU played a role.
@Mack: Now you are being disingenuous. The fact that EU countries sit around the same table and attempt (and for the most part agree) joint strategies and cooperation is why no EU countries ended up going to war against each other since WWII. The American troops stationed in Germany were solely a deterrent for Russia. At the time of the Balkan Wars, the EU was not in a position to intervene as a single unified force. The irony is that it is the same people such as you who give out about the EU’s lack of action in wars such as the Balkans who will be the first to cry foul should a single EU army/defence strategy to formed.
The irish gov need to wake up and realiize that the uk will not allow a no border situation while ireland are allowing so many immigrants and potential terrorists into Ireland and then potentially on to the UK.
@Peedur Dante: there is evidence that terrorists can and have entered the UK through Ireland. We know of one where the terrorists lived in Dublin before attacking London. The UK intelligence service say they foiled hundreds of potential attacks without giving any information. Probability would suggest some of these had links to Ireland in some way.
@Adrian: “so many immigrants and potential terrorists into Ireland”
What? How many terrorists are we letting in, please provide some facts to back up your statement.
@Peedur Dante: anyway, I think the UK gov place a higher priority in protecting their own citizens in the uk than implementing an open border with northern ireland and they will do whatever to protect their own country.
Whatever happens with Brexit, the real imperative for Ireland is for the Irish people to decide by referendum within 5 years of a deal on whether we stay in the EU or not. Only an innocent would think that either the Brits or the Eurocrats have our interests at heart. It’s the Irish people who should decide on Brexit not the politicians. Btw, I have no opinion one way or the other re whether we should stay or leave but it’s the Irish people who should have the final word on this not the politicians.
@Brian Deane: If Ireland were to leave it would be done via a referendum, no government can just take us out without the public having a say. Either way if we did have a vote id vote to stay. The EU has problems but it also brings good things to member states and we can’t ever hope to improve the EU if we left.
@Mark McDermott: Apart from democratic value of a referendum on EU membership within 5 years of a Brexit deal, I also believe that the prospect of a vote would help to up the game of those negotiating especially if they that the Irish people would effectively be voting on the outcome. The Irish political establishment telling Europe at this stage that we’re staying in the EU regardless of the outcome means that it’s more likely we could get a last minute bad Brexit deal. It’s the people of Ireland we should trust not the politicans.
Does anyone know what measures the Varadkar government are putting in place in case of a hard brexit?
@Damocles:
A simple phone call:
“Teresa, you got a problem!”
@Michael Kavanagh: hilarious. As ever.
However you’d expect them to have some measures in place. It’s not like it might be an unexpected eventuality.
@Damocles: what contingencies is the EU making to avoid other member states departing??
@Hellenize Dublin: you’d really have to ask them. It’s not in my remit.
But I’d wager it rhymes with “Duck Call.”
@Michael Kavanagh:
Wrong.
Ireland has a problem.
The border we should worry about is the E-W one, and Leo seems to be doing his very best to place obstacles in the way of EU – UK trade.
The French will never buy Irish agricultural produce, and the Germans will never import Irish manufactured good.
Like it or not, the UK is an important trade partner for Ireland, and Varadkar should be working with the UK to find solutions.
Wasn’t the backstop legal text supposed to be ready for this meeting, or did I understand Varadkar and Coveney wrong a couple of months ago ?
If anyone finds that kicked can on their street today, please return to Leinster House, reward given.
It’ll be a hard border. What else can work? The Brits have messed up again.
@Paul Furey: If there is no backstop, or FTA/Customs Agreement, yes – it is an EU law that there must be a border, even though the UK may not want one. According to Verhofstadt in a recent discussion with Mogg, the EU country involved must invoke border controls. The non EU country has no obligation whatsoever except to itself.
@wattsed:
Precisely.
It will be Ireland, not the UK that imposes a hard border.!!
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