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THE 27 MEMBERS of the European Commission are due in Dublin this morning for a high-level meeting with members of the Irish government.
The 27 members – each nominated by one EU member state, and led by commission president Jose Manuel Barroso – will discuss Ireland’s proposed programme for its six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The members include former cabinet minister Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, the Irish member of the Commission who is responsible for Research, Innovation and Science.
Cecelia Malmstrom, the Swedish commissioner for Home Affairs, tweeted that she and her colleagues would “talk to ministers and see how we can cooperate in the best way”.
Most commissioners sit in on meetings of the Council of the EU (the meetings of ministers from each member state, which Ireland will be chairing for the next six months), meaning commissioners end up working closely with the council’s president country.
Today’s meetings will include several bilateral meetings between the European Commissioners and the Irish ministers responsible for their respective policy briefs.
The commissioners come a day after Herman van Rompuy, the president of the European Council – the body made up of the 27 heads of government of each EU state – visited Dublin and complimented Ireland on its plans for its presidential term.
The visit is a return visit after most of Ireland’s cabinet travelled to Brussels to meet the Commission in October, to brief them on Ireland’s policy proposals for its presidency.
Separately, the EU’s political directors will hold their biannual meeting – where they set the policy objectives for the Foreign Affairs Council – in Farmleigh.
A high-level group on gender mainstreaming, comprising of the officials in each member state responsible for gender equality issues, will be held in Kilmainham.
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To all the people moaning and bitching about the banks and repaying the bondholders etc.
This is now the time to “put up or shut up”, I have been reading posts by the thousand all bitching about money and the EU, get up off your lazy backsides and protest on Kildare street when this lot arrive here.
You all mouth off at every opportunity but could not be bothered actually doing anything about it if it involves more effort than a typing a few lines in the journal.
When I see 250,000 marching on Kildare street I will believe in this cause, until then you are a lot of hot wind.
Put up or shut up!
ah here
You’re wrong. Protesting achieves nothing. Look at Greece being financially raped by the EU even with massive civil protests.
What works? Well remember the water tax? Don’t pay. Don’t pay house tax. The EU banking system would go into a spin if there was a movement here to stop paying mortgages on a certain date.
You see they love protests because it says they’ve won. Threaten their pensions and banking buddies with financial disobedience and they will bring the army in.
Last of all. Don’t vote for sociopathic politicians like FF FG Lab etc. Donnelly in Wicklow was a good start. Direct Democracy is the way to go.
Also. The keyboard is mightier than the sword. Look at Rabbite and co fretting over the fact they’ve no control over the flow of information feeding people’s brains. Their official line is bring pummelled. Good stuff.
There’s a war in for your mind.
If you see them throw eggs at them. Where can you find them? Being whisked around in expensive limo’s, dining in expensive restaurants, staying in 5 star hotels, living it up while claiming massive expenses. And don’t forget to pay your Household Tax. It will keep these people in the luxury they are accustomed to.
Sean
I thought you said that you don’t own property?
Sean, if a few hundred pensioners can shift government opinion then 250,000 citizens can do the same.
Sean,
I think there is room for both types of protest. Mass civil disobedience is very effective as the anti Household tax campaign has shown.
Street protests have the effect of giving people confidence, helping them to lose the fear and to engage in further civil disobedience. People no longer feel powerless and isolated in their homes but instead see thousands marching who feel the same as they do and begin to get an idea of the power they can yield when they act together.
The Mortgage strike that you mentioned is potentially our most powerful weapon if it can be organised on a large scale. That would send a shudder of horror through the Irish and European elite so cosy in their status quo as they loot the country to pay for the gambling losses of financial speculators.
@ coddler
enlighten me ‘Mass civil disobedience is very effective as the anti Household tax campaign has shown.’
Ehh the majority ( greater than 50%) have paid , It’s being replaced with the new tax and the revenue commissioners will collect all outstanding household taxes or the grippers collect or ultimately you go to jail . Gotta say ‘ Really Effective’
John…. multiple properties registered by single owners tends to distort the %.Would be interested to know true figure of owner occupier registration,would give a truer reflection of acceptance of this tax would you not agree?
@ Norman,
You’re clutching at straws on this one. Multiple property inputs are too low to have any statistical impact. The war is over and Phil Hogan won
Don’t lose the head there Mr. Baptist :) The 70% compliance rate for the Household charge is very misleading. Firstly the government are basing the 70% figure on a total of 1.6 million eligible properties which is incorrect. The true figure is around 1.8 million units which gives a 61% of eligible properties (not people).
Also as Norman says, the landlords with multiple properties have skewed the payment figures. Of the single home owners, the split is around 50:50 between those who have paid and those who have not. Make no mistake, this is a massive boycott with around 700,000 Irish people in open defiance of the government.
This mass civil disobedience will continue and expand on the Property tax issue despite the government spin and threats and nobody is going to jail over non payment. Even big Phil is not dense enough to light that political dynamite.
The County Councils had the legal authority to take people to court over non payment of the Household tax. There they faced fines of €2500 and penalties of €100 per day if they failed to register for the tax. None of this occurred and the threats and bluster from the authorities evaporated because the mass boycott made it politically unacceptable. The government eventually conceded defeat when they abandoned the courts cases and passed the parcel to the Revenue.
In the same way, a mass campaign of civil disobedience including a boycott of the Property tax can make the new draconian powers of the Revenue redundant. They have the powers but they will be unable to use them if large enough numbers of people refuse to co-operate with them.
John… that all you got?Well forget i asked you so and we’ll leave it at that.
Con – you don’t have to throw anything, just show your face on the streets.
Manuel Barosso, the cultural marxist maoist. Arrogant beyong belief, pure sense of entitlement to rule. The face on him when Ireland voted no, the anger and resentment at Ireland, they got us to vote the right way, their way, these leftists own us and make most of our laws, these are people not elected by the European people, tyrants.
So the circus finally arrives..
At least that’s 27 more for “the gathering”
except this crowd will spend fk all over here..
You mean the Irish culling.
Say bye bye to 5€ million.
A lot of seemingly positive news being released in the last few days but i am a bit cautious that it coinsides with the presidency. If i was to hazard a guess, I would say Europe needs an austerity success story and Ireland needs a deal on soverign debt. Listening to Enda last night he seems confident that a deal will be done by march 31st but what kind of deal will it be. It must must be writedown/writeoff as opposed to restructuring as we really need to get our domestic economy moving.
Frank it won’t be a writedown,but it will be spun so much it’ll be near impossible to figure out excactly what it will be.But if i was pressed i would say be a 40yr bond,shackling our grandchildren.
Frank the 31st of March only relates to the promissory note for Anglo. Listening to Draghi I’d not be so positive. Remember Kenny has a record of spinning.
So Enda will be on the World stage embarrassing the hell out of us. The national debt issue looks like it isnt a problem compared to Enda.
Does he come with subtitles!
The emperor is coming what a treat for the peasants in a PIGS nation as they liked to refer to us.
Still playin the ‘please like us ‘ we are not screaming like the Greeks or other indebted nations, Enda would pefer a pat on the back from who he considered are his his betters, rathef than standing with our equals – Spain- Greece , at the the end of the day we won’t get the deal we deserve !!!!’we’ll get the deal we negotiate!!!!! and these fools have show their lack of understanding in that for a long time now..
The EU presidency will cost the Irish tax payer €60 million.
What a lot of bollocks.
Everyone was prepared to take the money and did not read the small print
NO ONE listened to the experts who said this would happen. Especially 20-20 Hindsight geniuses above
So shut the F*** up and pay what you owe.
someone made a comment that the keyboard is mightier than the sword , well I hope this will be of comfort to you in a few years when the only person you see on your tv is some foreign guy in Brussels reading out the Irish Budget and telling us he’s giving all our kids a golden star to celebrate our subservience and obedience to the new superstate .
wake up , get out there and protest , many of our people died for a country that we could own and run ourselves
have your say