Brussels Briefing
Moral indignation against Cyprus and its banking practices reached new heights among some finance ministers meeting in Dublin Castle and it will be the turn of the European Parliament on Wednesday.
They believe the country was acting as the local washeteria for money from every kind of mafia and insist the country gets by on the €10bn bailout it has been allocated.
Economist Prof Brian Lucey, pictured, reckons that while Ireland helped protect German bankers, Cyprus is paying for 5% of the Greek debt.
He estimates when the ECB takes the money it has provided to keep the Cypriot economy going after their banks were forced to take a write down on their Greek debt, the end result is a reverse bailout with the Cypriots paying between €3bn and €7bn to their bailors.
Anti-austerity and property tax protesters were out in force for one of the biggest events of the Irish presidency of the EU on Saturday.
Their chanting could be heard by the journalists in their specially erected marquee beside the Chester Beatty Library at Dublin Castle.
Several went to speak to the protesters, however the finance ministers, commissioners and ECB chiefs had flown the coop.
Ireland had adopted the now well-practised policy of allowing protests — but keeping them well away from those for whom the message was intended.
Exports of oil, gas, and minerals from Africa were worth €300bn in 2008, nine times the value of international aid to the continent, but thanks to firms paying off corrupt regimes, very little of it improved the lives of citizens.
Under legislation agreed with the European Parliament, EU gas, oil, and logging multinationals must state in their accounts the exploitation rights they paid to developing countries’ governments over €100,000.
The deal was finally concluded by Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton, whose initial position was that such rules need not be applied to EU firms.
It won’t apply to EU governments so if the government refuses to say exactly how much they receive for fracking or gas licences, the companies are unlikely to tell.
Knowing just how many people are in a country has rarely been so important, especially for Ireland.
Every country tends to have its own way of finding out the size of its population.
On Thursday MEPs will vote on legislation laying down common rules for compiling population statistics — very important when the EU is calculating the weight of the country’s vote in council
“This is a question in the Irish language, we don’t have translation,” the French interpreter explained to those who rushed for their headphones at the final Ecofin press conference in Dublin Castle on Saturday.
The last question went to Radio na Gaeilge. Vitor Constancio of the ECB was slightly startled fearing doubtless that he might be expected to answer.
Finance Minister Michael Noonan did not blink an eyelid but answered the question.
The corp of international journalists rushed to anybody Irish afterwards to ask if they had missed anything. They hadn’t.
The global online civil society body, AVAAZ, is on the trail of the EU, urging its more than a million members to put pressure on them to resist attempts to patent everyday vegetables and fruit.
MEPs have already said conventionally-bred animals and plants must not be subject to patents, giving companies or individuals sole rights to them.
However, there are fears that the European Patent Office is ready to concede such patents particularly to Monsanto. AVAAZ says that the US company already owns a third of all tomato and sweet pepper varieties and close to a half of all cauliflower varieties registered in the EU.
They have organised an internet campaign to stop the trend asking people to sign up to it on their website at www.avaaz.org
Ireland was singled out as the only programme country to have kept its civil society involved when planning austerity measures in a major report on industrial relations prepared for commissioner László Andor.
It mentioned the Croke Park agreement as one of the reasons that the programme has operated well and led to less protest than in countries like Greece, where civil society was totally excluded from consultations.
However, the report came with a warning that the massive downgrading of public sector jobs, with new recruits on much lower salary scales, and getting rid of so much experience will not benefit the country in the longer term.
The European Court of Auditors proved what has long been suspected: handing farm money to food processing companies does not appear to create additional benefit for anyone other than the company.
They looked at the €9bn that from 2007-2013 went to enterprises that process and market agricultural products throughout the EU. A fifth went to food processing companies. In the six national and regional areas they studied in detail they found there was no way of knowing if it achieved anything. It was not directed towards projects proven to need such support and so just becomes “a handout to the food-processing companies”, it concluded.
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