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The challenge of EU reform
Ireland’s new MEP talks about bringing Sinn Féin’s vision for a Citizen Centred Europe to the next level
BY CHRIS MacMANUS
Reforming all that is wrong with the EU project is a slow process, but it will never happen if we don’t make tangible efforts to change it now. To find common ground across the political spectrum on the aspects that require a system overhaul is the first and probably the most difficult task to achieve.
To put it mildly, we in Sinn Féin never made it a secret that we have a radically different outlook on the European institutions. For obvious reasons, the idea of any kind of foreign governance doesn’t rest easy with Republicans. That said, critically engaging with the EU shouldn’t imply just ‘hurling from the ditch’. It should mean that we acknowledge what is right with the EU and work to remedy what is wrong with it. We must forge bold but reasonable plans to address the
EU’s inadequacies and protect those elements of the project that work well for all its member states, not just the select few geographically closest to the EU parliament buildings or with a federalist outlook like
Germany and her neighbours.
It was the German statesman Otto von Bismarck who once stated
“If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made”. I’m not sure The definition about the latter but, after only a few weeks as an MEP, I can of a ‘small farmer’ in already attest that the former rings true. Every single decision moves Sligo is quite at a glacial pace. The sheer size of the European Union a different means every meeting, plenary, concept to the committee or parliamentary sitting is noted, minuted and one considered entails an excessive paper trail as does every amendment or in Bavaria or rejection faced by legislation the Po Valley in on its way to fruition. Not to mention the questionable Italy outlay of time and money (€114M per annum) that is the monthly trek to Strasbourg. I could also dedicate a separate article to the EU’s fixation on a onesize-fits-all pan-European policy that hasn’t and will never work. For example, the definition of a ‘small farmer’ in Sligo is quite a different concept to the one considered in Bavaria or the Po Valley in Italy. The EU’s steady march towards militarisation is another major cause for concern in recent years. Ethics aside, this is an increasingly dangerous funnelling of funds that could be put to better use elsewhere. Surely this is not the European Union that was envisaged by its earliest pioneering dreamers. My concern is that the longer you stay in European politics the
• When a border poll materialises and reunification talks are in process, it’s better to have the EU to be working with us
more acclimatised and accepting you become to the EU ’bubble’ and maybe that’s the problem. As Ireland has become so enthralled with the system, it’s lost the ability to critically engage with it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m no Irexit cheerleader. I, for the most part, consider the EU to be a worthy notion. There is no doubting the positive impacts it has had since its formative decades post-WWII. As a peace project and as a framework for inter-European trade, it has been largely successful. We should never forget the fragility and simmering tensions that existed across our continent prior to its inception.
Likewise, from a more selfish, domestic viewpoint our major road infrastructures have benefited massively in recent decades through EU funding. Some of you will be able to recall car journeys from Belfast to Cork taking upwards of seven or eight hours. If you didn’t complete that same journey now in under four hours, you’d be disappointed with yourself. The same applies east-west, with a Dublin to Galway venture taking less than half the time it took in the ‘80s. These infrastructural improvements have been greatly beneficial to the economy across the island but it has also brought Irish society in our four provinces closer together.
Post-Good Friday Agreement, the EU put its money where its mouth was. Many cross border projects benefited greatly from funding in the past twenty or so years. I worked for over a decade with the former political prisoner community, primarily funded by EU special funding, and there’s no doubting that many such projects helped bolster the peaceful times we now live in. And when, indeed, a border poll materialises and reunification talks are in process, I’d much rather the EU to be working with us, similar to German unification in the early ‘90s.
• EU funded infrastructure has been greatly beneficial to the economy across the island but it has also brought Irish society in our four provinces closer together
So, in short, there’s plenty to like about a Europe working together, but that one negative you’ll always hear being bounced around, though, is ‘bureaucracy’. There’s simply no getting away from it. Ask anyone who was involved in any of the admin and paper reports in those EU funded Peace projects I mentioned and they would all think twice before embarking on similar schemes again due to the chronic officialdom attached to funding.
I recall my predecessor, Matt Carthy, making efforts to simplify the red tape around CAP payment system to make life easier for family farmers. Ironically, it was the red tape that strangled that initiative.
I’m sure my former EU colleagues Lynn Boylan, Liadh Ní Riada and
Martina Anderson would attest to similar tribulations.
So how does one change the direction of an oil tanker like the
European Union?
Firstly, we acknowledge the I will fight every need for change. As misjudged as Brexit was, it needs to be the day to make EU’s wake up call. The European the EU work Union is by no means perfect, and we shouldn’t be so surprised better for us when apparent deficiencies are left bare by the likes of Brexit. That can be difficult to accept in the parliamentary presence of jingoistic Farage types, but whether we like it or not we should learn from the issues Brexit raised. The current
Covid-19 crisis should amplify that wake-up call.
In my opinion, to see tangible EU reform we need a cohesive strategy that works at the problematic issues from a number of angles.
Later this year, depending on the lifting of Covid restrictions, we’re likely to see the Conference on the Future of Europe taking place.
This event will host TDs, MPs and MEPs from across the continent.
In theory this is a forum to discuss and implement reform of the EU project. In reality, it will be a media exercise where the closest thing to reform we’re likely to see is a mere fine-tuning of an already agreed federalist ‘vision’ that further cements our wayward trajectory.
There is an overwhelmingly neoliberal slant in European politics today and it is unlikely a conference like this can or will address the major issues. The best we can hope is that the representatives present, from each member state, may seek to protect their own sovereignty. This might look like the obvious place to present our agenda for change, but the reality is that even if we had consensus among our thirteen Irish MEPs, it would be difficult to have any real sway when you consider the influence of countries with far more MEPs e.g. Germany with ninety-six.
Perhaps the only way of achieving any kind of substantive reform is to take the debate out of the EU institutions themselves. Not like we’ve done previously through managed consultations, but through meaningful domestic processes. The Oireachtas for example should rigorously scrutinise what’s going on in the EU, as happens in other member states. MEPs should be more closely tied into Oireachtas deliberations and to national interests and priorities, rather than uncritically supporting everything the EU does.
The public should be involved in this process, so that we can have a real discussion about what powers should be specifically allocated at EU, National, Regional or Local levels. In addition to this, we need a national consensus to refuse EU reforms which would further damage our national democracy and take decision making and accountability further away from citizens.
The reality is that we are not unique in wanting change. It is vital we build alliances across the EU with those who want to see similar reform. We must begin conversations with the broad left and others to get things moving. The majority of us want to see the same improvements and we should be working together to achieve those goals.
As a new Sinn Féin MEP, my priority is that I will fight every day to make the EU work better for us. Taking inspiration from the Proclamation, it must be about economic and social equality for all citizens. I will endeavour to seek reform and change within those institutions that hold us back. I will work with long-standing friends of Irish Republicanism and seek new allies with those who share common policy platforms with ourselves. Most importantly, I will always keep the republican message at the forefront of all my dealings as an MEP.
So begins the challenge.
Solidarity is the cure for post pandemic Europe
As Europe slowly reopens after the devastating impact of the Coronavirus, the GUE/NGL group of which Sinn Féin is a part of in the EU Parliament has been actively campaigning in the EU on a range of fronts. Sinn Féin MEP Chris McManus has won support from the powerful Economics and Monetary Affairs Committee for a key Brexit amendment on workers’ rights.
Grúpa Cónasctha den Chlé Aontaithe Eorpach • den Chlé Ghlas Nordach
GRÚPA PARLAIMINTEACH EORPACH
www.guengl.eu
A plan for post pandemic Europe
In early May, the GUE/NGL group launched proposals for “a Sustainable Development and Employment Pact and an ECB that works for people and the planet”.
Titled ‘Solidarity is the Cure’, the plan “recognises the unprecedented nature of the health, economic and social crises facing the EU today while taking stock of the mistakes committed during the 2008 financial crisis to offer a progressive vision for Europe where people and planet come before profit and greed”.
Highlighting the difficulties and challenges frontline workers have faced in this crisis, GUE/NGL Co-President Manon Aubry called for an urgent reassessment of how their labour is recognised:
“The pandemic has laid bare the disastrous consequences of austerity in our public services, especially in the health sector. It has revealed the catastrophic impact of free trade and the loss of our industrial sovereignty as we’re seeing in the pharmaceutical sector. And it demonstrates the total absence of coordination and solidarity between member states.
“Health must come before profit. We need massive investment in the development of our health and social care systems to give its workers, mostly low-paid women, the social and financial recognition they deserve. The people must not be made to pay for the crisis. ‘Frugal’ member states need to accept the mutualisation of costs: the ECB has a key part to play, cancelling debts, and acting as a lender of last resort.”
For Co-President Martin Schirdewan this is a seminal opportunity to reimagine a more socially and ecologically just Europe, with solidarity as its backbone: “The decisions we make at this critical moment will determine the nature of the world we live in for decades to come. Do we allow a return to the policies of the past that have impoverished and disenfranchised people, and devastated public services and communities? Do we use public funds to prop up corporations and banks and allow them to continue exploitative practices?
Sinn Féin in the European Parliament
Sinn Féin MEP Chris MacManus has won support from the powerful Economics and Monetary Affairs Committee for a key amendment which will help protect workers’ rights and the free movement of services in Ireland after Brexit. The accepted amendment means the Committee, which will feed into the Parliament’s position, has now adopted a position that these issues should be covered in a future agreement with a post-Brexit Britain. MacManus said:
“The Irish protocol covers Irish workers working cross-border but other EU workers in this situation were not dealt with. Their issue is now firmly on the table thanks to Sinn Féin. Those who did not cause Brexit should not pay the price and the all-Ireland economy must not be a victim of a Tory Brexit. Once again, Sinn Féin have won widespread support for this position from the EU.
