It could take British exit for EU to wake up
It was stuffed full of Irish graduates who appeared as bright as buttons. Commissioners like Jacques Delors and Peter Sutherland fought tough and sustained battles to liberalise various European markets to stimulate true competition and consumer choice.
They fought walls of vested interests, backed by narrow political forces that preferred Europe with invisible but real borders designed to protect local interests.
That was the kind of Europe I signed up for. Roll forward 30 years and what do we have? It seems like bureaucracy and regulations are now the defining attributes of a vast European Commission infrastructure. Behind it lies a European Parliament that seems detached from the people it represents (do you even know who your local MEP is?) and its policies increasingly look like they are driven by agendas that seem removed from stimulating economic growth.
All of this forces a severe rethink. Normally, I’d be deeply sceptical about the anti European rhetoric that festoons the media and politics in Britain but now I’m not so sure. They rail against creeping limits on personal freedom, dictated ways of doing business and a general sense that an unelected but gigantic bureaucracy is determining the lives of individual citizens.
For Ireland, the outcome of this grand debate under way in the UK is important. If she does leave Europe what happens to business with our largest trading partner? If European core countries react by erecting barriers to business with the UK, what happens to the small and very open economy that is Ireland. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking the Germans and French will ride to our rescue. Can you name any companies from these countries that have created thousands of jobs in the Irish Republic?
If we left Europe along with the UK, what would that say about our political independence and where would it leave our critical agrifood industry which relies heavily on the Common Agricultural Policy?
Balancing the needs of our economy, not least while we are still under the throes of the Troika, is a multi-faceted and complex issue. Stability and steady growth, not endless and extreme volatility, is what Ireland covets for the next decade.
Instead of watching this debate evolve with ever widening jaws we should adopt our own robust strategy towards Europe. It should advocate a roll back of the regulatory creep which has grown in recent years, the freedom to set our own tax policies should be fiercely defended and the right to adopt industrial policies that trigger huge investment projects should be strongly fought for. Civil liberties should be underwritten and those looking for a centralised edifice run by faceless civil servants answering to voices in Paris and Berlin should be rejected. And all of that should be wrapped up in a vigorous campaign in support of a Eurozone that stands for competition, open markets, business enterprise and wealth creation. In other words we should agree with Britain on economics and with the Commission that existed 30 years ago on strategy.
Last week, a businessman who endlessly travels the world and thinks deeply about geopolitics expressed his alarm to me that ordinary people in Europe are letting a democratic wedge develop by allowing an unelected cadre assume control over a huge population. His main premise is that the UK must exit Europe to cause the type of disruption needed to wake policymakers up. It is a revolutionary thought but has increasing resonance with economic nationalists like me.
* Joe Gill is director of corporate broking with Goodbody Stockbrokers.
