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No. 220 October 25Th 2020 Mairead Mcguinness and the Religions

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No. 220 October 25Th 2020 Mairead Mcguinness and the Religions No. 220 October 25th 2020 Mairead McGuinness and the religions lobby. The EU Parliament has backed Mairead McGuinness as Ireland’s new Commissioner responsible for financial services. However, during her hearing in the Economy Committee, MEPs failed to press her on her partiality in affording a greater voice to religious lobbies in EU policymaking. In 2019, an investigation by OpenDemocracy unearthed documents detailing McGuinness’s plans to open the Parliament’s doors to religious organisations seeking to Another Irish voice in Brussels understood to have worked on the report is Faerghas O’Beara, who was McGuinness’s adviser. His LinkedIn page says that he coordinated “Parliament’s dialogue with religious and philosophical organisations, based on Article 17 of the Lisbon Treaty (TFEU), under the political leadership of the First Vice-President.” He is currently Head of Unit (acting) Structural Policies Unit, European Parliamentary Research Service. Read more here. EU Council explores blanket telecommunications surveillance The Presidency of the Council of the EU is planning a new working party, which will work on policy and legal initiatives aiming to reintroduce EU-wide blanket telecommunication surveillance. Previous EU legislation on telecoms data retention was struck down by the Court of Justice in 2014, but many national laws remain in place and there are ongoing efforts to introduce a new EU-wide regime. The proposal is to set up the WDPR for three years, and the mandate will be "subject to review upon its expiration and can be renewed or extended according to the needs and the objectives to be attaint in the area of data retention." 1 It has already been over six years since the Court of Justice struck down the notorious Data Retention Directive, and in the intervening period there has been little progress on establishing new EU-wide measures. European Digital Rights (EDRi) an association of civil and human rights organisations from across Europe has recently published a new handbook, Data Retention Revisited, looking at the history, law and impact of data retention in Europe. Read more here. Click here. Mick, Mikser and the militarists! All Brussels’ documents relating to EU militarisation and global expansion are couched in language that deliberately aims to mislead and obscure. Nothing is presented as it actually is. The latest such report, “The implementation of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) 2019”, was presented at the Security Defence Sub-committee this week and proved to be no different. A prime example of this misuse of words is reference to the “European Peace Facility”, which conjures up something positively tranquil. However, it is quite the opposite. Mick Wallace tabled a number of amendments to the report and unlike the official version of the EU’s “security and defence” actions in the world, there is no ambiguity, no attempt to obfuscate in Wallace’s account. Both reports will be voted on in the European parliament. It will be interesting to see how many MEPs genuinely wish a peaceful world and vote in favour the Irish MEP’s recommendations. Read more here. Here’s short video of Mick Wallace’ contribution to the ‘debate’ in the EU Parliament: WhatsApp Video 2020-10-19 at 15.12.12.mp4 2 Lobbying against bendy bananas! Few stories about the EU have been as persistent over the past decades as the tale of the 'bendy banana law', which first made its appearance in a story in The Sun in September 1994. Other papers followed-up with similar stories. According to the article, "Brussels bureaucrats" created a pointless law that would "outlaw curved bananas. The impression it created persists to this day in tabloid stories and as a talking point. Even Boris Johnson cited 'crazy' EU rules about the shape of bananas during the Brexit referendum campaign. The 'bendy banana' has become a folk-tale but the real story behind the 1994 banana law lies in the EU Commission archives. The commission papers, dormant for over two decades, were recently unearthed by journalist Alexander Fanta through a request under the EU's freedom-of-information law. They give a rare insight into the process of law-making and who is involved in it. The EU does have a banana law. Regulation 2257/94 decrees that bananas should meet minimum quality standards such as being 'free from malformation or abnormal curvature of the fingers'. Read more here EU troops on the road to Mozambique? The EU has agreed to assist Mozambique in strengthening the capacity in its fight against a rising Islamist insurgency in a region that is home to Africa’s biggest foreign investments. The EU gave a positive response to Mozambique’s request for assistance, EU Ambassador to Mozambique, Antonio Sanchez-Benedito Gaspar said in a statement on October 9th. Mozambique made the request in September. Companies including Total SE plan to spend as much as $60 billion on liquefied natural gas projects in Cabo Delgado province, where Islamic State-linked militants have captured major towns. Thomas Pringle, Independent TD for Donegal has raised the issue of EU troops for Mozambique in the Dáil during pre - EU Council questions. Here is what he said: “The EU Council is pushing for more and more militarisation. What is our role going to be in that? We have troops already in Mali, Libya is very prominent in the EU's sights now and Mozambique appears to be next 3 in line for EU troops. Ongoing EU missions and operations (EEAS) Read more here The embryo Irish military – industrial complex - a short introduction and a recent event. In July 2011, the Government approved arrangements, whereby Enterprise Ireland supports the Defence Forces capability development, by raising the awareness of, and engaging with, Irish- based enterprise and research institutes, including third level colleges that are engaged in relevant and related activities. This Defence Enterprise Initiative is achieved through the Defence Enterprise Committee overseen by the Defence Enterprise Co-ordination Committee. These committees comprise of personnel from the Department of Defence, the Defence Forces and Enterprise Ireland. All proposals are vetted and agreed by the Defence Enterprise Committee to ensure compatibility with the roles assigned to the Defence Forces by the Government and where collaboration with industry/ third-level institutes will support Defence Forces capabilities. The Irish Defence Forces Officers' Club (IDFOC) has been organising webinars in the context of the establishment of the pending establishment of the Commission. The Webinar (Business Leaders' Panel) on the Commission on Defence included as speakers, Dr Ray McNulty, former Price Waterhouse Coopers, Neil McDonald, CEO Irish Small and Medium Firms Enterprises Association (Isme) and Paul Farrell, General Manager IBM (IRL). You can watch their contributions here. These are very instructive meetings and nobody who did not subscribe to a particular line was invited. It is obvious that industry sees an opportunity and has its cheerleaders in the officers’ corps. Perhaps even more serious is the invited list of speakers dubbed as “political insiders.” There were definitely no pro-neutrality voices there! Read more here Remember him? He’s the one who told us we’d have to vote again! French investigating magistrates have issued a fourth charge against ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy for allegedly accepting Libyan cash to fund his 2007 presidential campaign. He is accused of "membership in a criminal conspiracy", in the long-running investigation. The charges could lead to a trial. After four days of questioning he rejected all the charges. He was also questioned last year. In 2008, during a meeting with deputies from his UMP party at his office in Paris, following the rejection of the Lisbon Treaty by the Irish electorate, Sarkozy, who took over the EU presidency on July of that year said: “The Irish will have to vote again.” The UMP deputies repeated the remarks to journalists waiting 4 outside. Lisbon could not be implemented until it was ratified by all member states. Ireland was the only country to hold a referendum on the Treaty. Read more here. A Political thriller turned reality - the Common Fisheries Policy. Fictional political thrillers are not the normal fare of the People’s News, but the publication this year of On the Green Hill of Tara by Robert Adam deserves a mention Our hero Oskar needs to find a reason to travel to Ireland and decides that an investigation into potential border scams implementing the CAP should be the focus. In search of justification for the Irish trip leads him to the EEC’s Agricultural Commission and a leading young female bureaucrat. It is this woman’s talk that is very revealing: “Take a look at the map of Western Europe. Even the simplest child can understand why a Common Fisheries Policy was agreed by the Six only a few hours before Great Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Norway deposited their latest application to join. The annual fishing catch of the Four is double that of the current member states. “How did we manage to make fish appear in the European treaties where there hadn’t been the flash of a silvery fin before? “Because we reinterpreted a reference to “fisheries products” in the original Treaty of Rome as implying that the signatories must have intended EEC law to cover the Fisheries themselves. But fact is more devious than fiction! The original six therefore drew up Council Regulation 2141/70 giving all Members equal access to all fishing waters, even though the Treaty of Rome did not explicitly include fisheries in its agriculture chapter. This was adopted on the morning of 30 June 1970, a few hours before the applications to join were officially received. This ensured that the regulations became part of the acquis communautaire before the new members joined, obliging them to accept the regulation.
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