Brussels briefing
Despite a massive push to increase the role of research in creating future jobs, Ireland came just 17th out of 25 EU countries in securing scientific funding last year.
The budget for research is due to increase to €80bn for the next six years from next year, in plans devised under Commissioner Máire Geoghegan- Quinn, pictured. Ireland has its eye on a substantial slice of this and Ireland South MEP Seán Kelly is hosting a conference in Brussels next March during the Irish EU presidency, that he hopes will make this a reality.
“This is Ireland’s opportunity to regain our share of funding for frontier university research and to make Ireland a desirable location for foreign direct investment in scientific research,” he said.
Work on regulating the banks is now in overdrive in the EU, and the European Parliament is even turning its attention to the shadow banking sector.
Despite being in the shadows, it represents up to 30% of the whole financial system, a cool €46 trillion. And of course it is an extension of the regular banks, doing jobs they want done outside the system.
The first job is to clarify just what is shadow banking, which are the good bits and what are the dodgy jobs that helped make the current banking crisis even worse.
Sharon Bowles, chairwoman of the powerful European Parliament’s ECON committee, says they will tackle this by first going over the bits that are in the regulated sector, and follow the money into the shadows.
Bus Éireann is being investigated by the European Commission’s competition division, whose members visited Dublin as part of their research.
Last year the semi- state company got a €45m subsidy and it has a monopoly on school bus services.
MEP Jim Higgins, pictured, says this is unfair on private operators who have to make profit to survive, and he knows of a US operator interested in the school service, if it could tender for the contract.
Nicosia was a strange place for EU finance ministers to discuss economic union, given that a short distance away, in the centre of the city, the euro was not legal tender.
The city, and the island, remains divided after the Turkish invasion 40 years ago. This has huge and ongoing implications for the EU as Cyprus effectively blocks anything that might favour Turkey, including membership negotiations. But the island is further divided, with Britain holding a sizeable slice as it hung onto two military bases. In these, EU law does not apply — only UK law. This territory is also the only part of the UK where the euro is legal tender.
The Gallagher report drawn up by MEP Pat the Cope got a massive vote in favour, 657, with just seven against, in the European Parliament.
It legislates for tough sanctions against non-EU countries for fishing practices that threaten the supply, including banning from the EU ports, a ban on their fish and fishing equipment imports.
Iceland could be the first to find itself on the receiving end given that the massive increase in its mackerel catch is eating into the EU’s share.
Ireland is a major activist as mackerel worth €125m a year is the backbone of the pelagic sector in Killybegs and the North West.
It could pose an embarrassment for Ireland’s EU presidency in January as it negotiates with Iceland on membership and fishing, not least because it is coming out of a horrific banking meltdown.
The Gallagher report drawn up by MEP Pat the Cope got a massive vote in favour, 657, with just seven against, in the European Parliament.
It legislates for tough sanctions against non-EU countries for fishing practices that threaten the supply, including banning from the EU ports, a ban on their fish and fishing equipment imports.
Iceland could be the first to find itself on the receiving end given that the massive increase in its mackerel catch is eating into the EU’s share.
Ireland is a major activist as mackerel worth €125m a year is the backbone of the pelagic sector in Killybegs and the North West.
It could pose an embarrassment for Ireland’s EU presidency in January as it negotiates with Iceland on membership and fishing, not least because it is coming out of a horrific banking meltdown.
The EU is “in a defining moment”, commission president José Manuel Barroso told the parliament in Strasbourg in his annual State of the Union address.
He called for greater integration along the lines favoured by Germany of a federation of state.
He promised a blueprint in time for the European Parliament elections in Jun 2014 which he hopes would form an EU-wide shared issue in the campaigning.
He would also like to see the political groups each put forward a candidate for his job and use the results to strengthen the hand of the winning party.
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