Brussels Briefing - A lighter look at European events
With hardly a murmur one of the biggest free trade agreements became official on Friday.
It involves 54 countries around the world, including Ireland, that between them cover 90% of new electronic, high-tech goods.
It will give easier access to huge markets like China.
Goods ranging from medical equipment to video games, hi-fi systems and headphones to semi-conductors will no longer be handicapped with extra charges when imported by these countries.
It should be good news for an exporting country like Ireland and for the EU overall that exports €83 billion worth of such goods and imports €68 billion a year.
Initiated by the EU and to a large extent kept going by Brussels — even when China pulled out for a time —it took three years of tough negotiations but it was officially signed off on Friday.
There are a few land-locked countries in the EU, but none of them are so small as Luxembourg and it was this fact led Liadh Ní Riada, the Sinn Féin MEP, to urge caution on their Agriculture Commissioner when he addressed the European Parliament as Luxembourg took over the EU presidency for the next six months.
They don’t have a Fisheries Minister, as they don’t need one for their lakes and rivers, but Fernand Etgen will chair the fisheries ministers meetings. Cork-based Ms Ní Riada urged him to seek the advice of sea-faring nations like Ireland when addressing the deep-sea trawling regulations that are on their agenda.
“As Luxembourg is a land-locked nation, and therefore would not have the same insight into fisheries as sea-faring nations, it is reasonable to present such questions in a forthright manner,” she told him.
One of the more interesting agencies the EU is associated with is the European Space Agency — it does things people usually associate with the US or even Russia.
Its headquarters are in Paris and it has just got a new director general — Professor Johann-Dietrich Woerner a German scientist for the second time in its 50-year existence.
Ireland is one of the 22 countries that is a member while the EU contributes about 20% of the budget.Some of the ‘stars’ include Rosetta whose 12 years through the solar system includes Mars and is currently on comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
While David Cameron and his Tory government are desperately trying to find a way of staying in the EU without having to say so, their House of Lords is pushing for even greater integration.
The House of Lords, elitist as it may be, is one of the better national bodies at analysing and making useful proposals for the EU.
They are launching a “Green Card”, with the support of 15 other national parliaments — that does not include Ireland — to ask the Jean Claude Juncker and the Euroepan Commission to produce proposals to reduce the 89 million tonnes of food wasted across Europe annually.
They say that this is an alternative to the ‘red-card’ given to national parliaments to question or halt many EU initiatives.
The decision by the publishers of the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo, to no longer feature cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad has raised differing opinions around the EU.
The editor of the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, which first published Muhammad cartoons that upset Islamists in 2005, has also said they won’t repeat the practice.
Staff were afraid following the murder of 12 cartoonists and journalists in Paris last year by Islamists who believe that picturing the prophet was blasphemy and justified murder.
Despite the defence of free speech, many people and organisations blamed the Charlie Hebdo victims for bringing about their own demise.
Ireland has risen up the global ranks in internet speeds. The latest figures from Rotten wifi.com place Ireland as the second best country when it comes to download speeds for wi-fi, and the best for uploads.
However there is no pleasing some people, so the country has come just ninth in client satisfaction.
It comes higher at eighth among clients for public wifi despite being just fourth for download speeds.
The Mount Eccles Court Hotel in Dublin has double the usual hotel speed, but visitors in other hotels with just half the speed are just as happy.
One would imagine that the appointment of judges, and the reasons for rejecting or accepting them, would be the most transparent in a democracy.
But apparently not, according to an investigation under way by the EU Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly.
Someone asked to see the penal opinions on judicial candidates nominate for the Court of Justice and the General Court, or atlas to their opinion on the current members of the court. The Council argued that it would harm their decision-making process, and would interfere with privacy.
The ombudsman disagrees and says that the legitimate interests of a democratic society favour disclosure, and further accuses them of consulting the panel and member states on the issue. She concludes they did not take account of the overriding public interest and O’Reilly wants them to get back to her by the end of October.
The Dutch and the Poles are launching a joint initiative to counter Russian propaganda that paints themselves as whiter than white, and the rest of the opposing world as villains.
The death of more than 100 Dutch nationals on a flight crossing the Russian/Ukraine border last July shocked people to the core, but it was exacerbated by the Russians that claimed the suggestion that they were involved was all a huge conspiracy against Moscow.
The Poles are used to the Russian narrative, and the two nations hope that others will join them in establishing an organisation to produce objective information that can be used by Russian and other media about events.The EU’s External Action Service has hired some expert to expose fake Russian stories also.
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