Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

notes statements by leading EU politicians and policy makers that the crisis of the Eurozone provides an opportunity to push ahead towards a fiscal/political union;

further notes that:

-- EU law making from 2014 will be put on a straight population basis;

-- the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, has announced that the unelected EU Commission will set out a range of fundamental EU treaty changes by early next year;

-- the Eurozone has developed a hegemonic economic model;

-- the plans for enforcing balanced budgets and draconian fiscal rules on the 17 Eurozone countries do nothing to address the sovereign debt and bank solvency crisis;

and

-- increasingly the EU is losing legitimacy and authority among ordinary citizens in EU states;

recognises that:

-- there has been no proper discussion of the fundamental flaws in the Eurozone from an Irish perspective;

-- the Eurozone exchange rate is generally unsuitable for Ireland's unique pattern of export and import trade both inside and outside the Eurozone; and

-- the Eurozone put us under the control of the European Central Bank; and as a consequence the Government has no economic policy beyond 'preserving the Euro';

and

calls on the Government to:

-- initiate a wide ranging public debate through civil society on the future direction of the European Union; and

-- ensure that treaty change includes a process to allow a Eurozone member state to voluntarily leave the Eurozone.

It is 40 years since our accession to the European Economic Community, EEC, as it was then, which has now become the European Union. At that time, the EEC was heralded as the great European hope for Ireland. How many times over the last 40 years have we heard politicians extol the virtues of our membership? How many times have they told us about the economic and social backwater we would have been only that those enlightened Europeans took us under their wing and showed us the error of our ways? Does anyone here seriously believe that Ireland would not have progressed except for our membership of the European Union? We are a nation that has always been influenced from the outside. We have always been open to ideas from abroad and have looked to adapt influences to our situation.

I think it appropriate at this time in our six-month Presidency of the European Union and on the 40th anniversary of our joining the EU that we evaluate where we are and where we are likely to go in the future. We need to move beyond the debate that Europe has been good for us, vote for jobs and follow the money. We all know now that those slogans were a con and are hollow. There is no doubt that there are big changes coming down the line in terms of our relationship with the European Union and what it will mean for us as a nation and indeed whether we will be a nation after those changes.

The Government is content to allow the debate in Europe to move on to treaty change and the development of a full banking union. Most European commentators and politicians are calling for closer and closer integration. The Taoiseach said in this House in June 2012 that "the Deputy asks if this country is going to be walked into a federalised Europe and the answer is "No"." Yet we see the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, saying that a federal Europe will soon become a reality. He has insisted that the fiscal union will lead to an intensified political union for all 27 member states. On 16 May last, the French President, François Hollande, called for a European government with full powers to deal with all the issues involved in solving the financial crisis.

So are we really to believe the Taoiseach when he gives us this categorical answer? Unfortunately, I think we should have learned by now that we cannot. There is an attitude within the European elite that we should not waste this crisis. The crisis should be used to push on with European integration and the creation of a European super state. Speaking in May 2010, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said:

We have a shared currency but no real economic or political union. This must change. If we were to achieve this, therein lies the opportunity of the crisis and beyond the economic, after the shared currency, we will perhaps dare to take further steps, for example for a European army.

Is this the real agenda of the European elites? Is it enough that the Taoiseach says it will not happen on his watch? I do not think so. If we look at the way this Government has handled negotiations in Europe so far, it would not inspire huge confidence. It negotiated a reduction in the bailout interest rate but it turned out that Greece and Portugal had looked for it and the Government piggy backed on the proposal.

It seems the deal on the promissory note has brought some benefit but it has put the repayment of the debt onto future generations and it has also put real easing of the debt burden off the agenda. According to Government sources it seems there might be a success with regard to the banking situation with the result that the European Stability Mechanism will buy stakes in our banks while a fraction of the taxpayers' money will be recovered. The trade-off for these successes appears to be that we will go along with whatever integration that Germany and the Commission suggest. It seems there will not need to be a referendum in Ireland because the Irish people cannot be trusted to give the answer that Europe wants. Unfortunately, this has been the trend with regard to every Irish Government's attitude to Europe; we do what we are told when we are told. If the people have the cheek to say something different then we will continually be asked until we return the right answer.

This motion asks for a wide-ranging debate about the future direction of Europe. This is needed because there are many things that are happening and developing throughout this crisis which are not for the good of citizens but instead are aimed at the preservation of banks and the financial system.

The direction of all policy in Europe is now being directed by Germany. The upcoming German general election seems to be the deciding factor in how policy in Europe progresses. Where now are the so-called founding principles of a Europe founded on the needs of all member states and on the principles of community and co-operation? Since 2010 European policy has been driven by the needs of the eurozone and the wishes of Germany, aided by the Netherlands, Finland and Austria on the sidelines, pushing their hardline austerity agenda. France wants to seem to be in the passenger seat acting as co-pilot when in reality it is only there to take the bad look off German dominance and in order to maintain a semblance of democracy and co-decision making. The aim is to place the neoliberal agenda at the heart of Europe. It had been said that this crisis would signal the end of neoliberalism and the free market capitalism that it espouses. It certainly does not seem to be the case. As Paul Krugman has observed, "the drive for austerity was about using the crisis, not solving it". For example, in recent years the Commission has called for the privatisation of water utilities in bailout countries even though the Commission is supposed to be neutral on these issues, according to Article 345 of the EU treaties. In the case of Italy, the ECB secretly called for the full liberalisation of local public services which should apply in particular to the supply of local services through large-scale privatisations. Thankfully, for the people of Italy, this agenda has been stalled by the Italian Supreme Court which ruled it to be unconstitutional. What hope is there of a similar outcome here?

The creation of Water Ireland is one of the planks of the troika bailout agenda. The setting of the tariff for water charging and the regulation of the water market is to be governed by the Commission for Energy Regulation. We have seen how it has liberalised the energy market and pushed up the price of energy in Ireland in order to attract competition. What will happen when the service level agreements that Water Ireland enters into with local authorities come up for review by CER after 2017? Will we see competitive tenders for the replacement of service-level agreements? I have no doubt that we will and the agenda of the troika will be fulfilled.

The second part of this motion calls on the Government to use the upcoming treaty amendments proposed by the Commission to ensure that provision is made for a member state to voluntarily leave the eurozone or cease to use the euro as its currency. Currently there is no provision in the treaties for a member state to leave the eurozone. The only provision in the treaties is for a member state to leave the Union itself. Indeed, there is considerable consternation in the ECB with regard to this provision.

In a legal working paper published in December 2009, the ECB considered the provision allowing for a member state to leave the euro and therefore the Union itself. The paper questioned why the drafters of the Lisbon treaty, "introduced such an abuse-prone provision into the treaties". The paper went on to conclude that the exit clause is, "one of the major faults of the Lisbon Treaty". The paper views the creation of economic and monetary union as the, "irrevocability of the substitution by the euro of the currencies of the participating member states and to the irreversibility of the monetary union process". If this statement is true and the Government agrees, then we are on a one-way journey to the creation of a federal European super state and the statement by the Taoiseach last June was clearly misleading the House on the purpose of the European project. The logical conclusion of this statement is that there has to be further integration within the eurozone and the creation of a federal Europe. The only solution to the crisis we have suffered for the past five years is to create a transfer union and full economic and political integration. There is another path that could be delivered if an exit procedure from the EMU were to be included in the treaty negotiations that the Commission has signalled.

I refer to the period 1993 to 1999 in Ireland. This is when the phrase the Celtic tiger was coined. During that period we had a genuine economic development built on having a competitive currency that floated freely on international markets. This is not to be confused with the period between 2001 and 2008, when the economy was built on property speculation and the availability of cheap credit that fuelled the property boom. Such a boom was predicted by many commentators who flagged the danger of pinning economies at different cycles to a single currency at a fixed rate. The Central Bank's only role was to keep inflation low. This was a time when Ireland, Spain and the other peripheral countries needed higher interest rates to control credit demands while Germany and the so-called core countries needed low rates to stimulate their economies. This motion suggests options that will put the citizens of Ireland and the citizens of Europe first, and not the interests of the European elites. The option of leaving the EMU should be available to us. In my view it is the only option that would give us the opportunity of coming out of this crisis.

Our own currency that would float with its own exchange rate would give us a tool to ensure competitiveness in the economy. The circumstances that would make the economy grow would be under our own control. Expanding domestic money supply could inflate away the burden of debt both corporate and personal and make our exports even more competitive, thus increasing domestic demand for goods and services. This would also allow the Government to invest in jobs and growth in the economy. In order to do this we have to have control of monetary policy in the State and not to be under the control of the ECB. The only way to achieve that goal is to ensure there is provision in the treaties for an exit from EMU. If the Taoiseach really has the interests of the Irish people at heart he will work to ensure that the treaties are amended to provide for it. We need to have all policy options available to us in order to build a recovery.

In recent weeks the President expressed concerns about the direction that Europe has been taking. He talked about the hegemonic development of economic policy in the EU, of a Europe dominated by the interests of one member state with no consideration for any other interests. There has also been comment on the disconnect of European citizens from the Union. This is very true and can be seen all across Europe. The policy that is being pursued is indifferent to the social consequences of those very same policies. This has led the Governor of the ECB, Mario Draghi to declare that social Europe is dead. We have seen the massive protests and national strikes in Greece, protests in Portugal and the rise of theindignadosin Spain. Youth unemployment all across Europe is at record levels with more than 26 million people unemployed. Emigration has devastated families and communities all across the country. It is acting as pressure relief valve and allowing the Taoiseach and his colleagues to implement the crippling austerity programme of the troika.

The European Union should be based on a union of member states which work together for the benefit of all European peoples, recognising that it is in the interests of all citizens that the Union works together and not for the benefit of the financial sector, international speculators and a political ideology that places their interests above the interests of everyone else.

The Government has an obligation to outline to the people where the EMU project is leading and what it sees the shape of the Union as being in the years to come as the drive towards a political and financial union continues. The debate should take place away from the heat of a debate on an imminent treaty change and in circumstances in which citizens can hear clearly what is being planned in their name. Alongside this debate, the Government should be mandated to work to ensure an option of withdrawal from EMU is enshrined in the EU treaties. This is the only option that will give the people the opportunity to change policy and the direction our membership of the European Union is taking.

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