Madam, – Vincent Browne is having a rant once again, using his position as a well-known political commentator to state “upcoming elections are waste of time” (Opinion, May 13th). To make such a sweeping statement, and by inference encourage the electorate to ignore their civic duty, is both outrageous and irresponsible. If the issue at hand were not so serious, it could be dismissed as Mr Browne having a go at the establishment, however he chooses to define it, at a given moment.
However, this European election, the largest transnational election in history, gives an opportunity to 375 million citizens in 27 countries to directly elect their representatives to the European Parliament in June.
The quality of those members of the European Parliament and their legitimacy as the representatives of European Union citizens to deal with the Council of Ministers that Mr Browne so decries, will not benefit by voters boycotting the polls on election day. European history is indelibly marked by the consequences of elections where a well-meaning electorate chose to remain at home. Nice, decent people remaining at home does not make for good parliamentary democracy, but rather opens a gaping hole which the extremists, malcontents and lunatics will happily fill.
The European Union is indeed about markets, fairer markets; about trade, free trade. It is also about agriculture, fisheries, industry. It is about foreign affairs, justice, security and immigration. It is about energy and the environment; in other words it is about people – about equality between people, irrespective of gender, race, creed or sexual orientation.
Not perfect, the European Union can, and must, be improved. It is our obligation as citizens of nation-states, members of this unique, transnational, family, to make our European Union work for us. Good governance, be it at local, national or European level cannot be achieved by staying at home. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Vincent Browne’s claim that “the ideology of the European Union . . . is all about free markets and free trade . . . and largely heedless of the dire social consequences of such agendas” is flawed on a number of grounds.
The European Union in many ways represents the very opposite of free trade. It spends over 40 per cent of its budget supporting agriculture and part of that money is used to subsidise below-cost dumping of excess produce on the third world. Food producers in such countries are then denied free access to European markets. Does Mr Browne really believe that this amounts to free trade?
Nor is it true that the European Union is largely heedless of the consequences of free markets. Virtually all legislation passed in this country in recent years on employment rights, consumer protection and environmental protection is of European origin. The statutory protections that we enjoy in those and other areas have been immeasurably improved since membership.
Mr Browne seems to view free markets as an unmitigated evil. Are they really that bad? Ireland, for all its current economic woes, is a much wealthier country than it was in 1973 and this is largely due to free trade.
Would Third World farmers, to whom I referred above, not prefer a level playing field to a system of trade that is grossly tilted against them? Has Mr Browne never heard of Adam Smith? His undergraduate obsession with the evils of capitalism has grown tiresome. – Yours, etc,
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