Posts tagged ‘Europe’
Europe: Bairbre de Brún – greening the recovery
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011Europe’s economy will be left behind without a green recovery, according to Bairbre de Brún. Extra investment is needed in the environmental sector but her fellow MEPs want more corporation tax. Climate change is a key interest for de Brún who is this month representing her GUE/NGL group at the UN climate change conference in Durban. GUE/NGL, which stands for the Confederal Group of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left, is the Parliament’s sixth largest group with 34 MEPs. The aim at Durban is to get progress on a replacement for the Kyoto protocol, although the USA refuses...[full story]
Europe: Diane Dodds – time for an exit
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011Rising costs and interference mean the UK is better off outside the EU, according to Diane Dodds. The DUP MEP discusses Northern Ireland’s place in Europe and her priorities with Peter Cheney. Diane Dodds is in the conflicting position of wanting the best financial deal for Northern Ireland in Europe and also wanting the UK to quit the EU, therefore cutting off those funds. However, she sees no such contradiction when the point is put to her. As part of a net contributor, Northern Ireland must “get more back out of Europe than it currently does” and leaving the EU would ultimately...[full story]
Europe: Jim Nicholson – Europe and enterprise
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011Jim Nicholson wants to promote a new narrative about Northern Ireland, with more businesses exploring European opportunities. Peter Cheney asks him about his current impressions of the EU. Europeans still associate Northern Ireland with conflict but a single visit makes visitors want to come back. That’s what Jim Nicholson found when he organised a regional tour for the bureau of his European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group. MEPs were “highly impressed” with Parliament Buildings despite the September rain, took a trip to the North Coast “and they really loved the scenery...[full story]
Europe: How others see Europe
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011Insularity and caution will damage Europe’s standing in the world, according to diplomats. Peter Cheney considers the view from New Zealand and the USA. Foreign observers are warning that an inward-looking and risk-averse Europe will fall behind the rest of the world. agendaNi asked American and New Zealand diplomats for their perspective on a continent in crisis. Vangelis Vitalis is New Zealand’s Ambassador-designate to the EU, and the son of Greek migrants. “The euro zone crisis is transfixing us in Wellington,” he states. However, Vitalis is also troubled by Europe’s changing...[full story]
Europe: European Parliament visitors’ centre
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011Peter Cheney visits the Parlamentarium, the European Parliament’s new visitors’ centre in Brussels. To promote itself to an apathetic public, the European Parliament has opened its first visitors’ centre and coined a new word in the process: Parlamentarium. Four days before it opened its doors, I joined a group of Czech students for a tour. You can’t miss the entrance, lit up like a Times Square sign, although its surroundings are grey and drab. As the tour gets under way, a darkened room shows grim scenes from the 1930s and 1940s, and then leads into a brighter timeline from...[full story]
Europe: Brussels to Belfast
Monday, June 6th, 2011de Brún in Dáil first Bairbre de Brún became the first Northern representative to speak in the Dáil chamber when she took part in the Europe Day debate (9 May). She restated Sinn Féin’s opposition to the bail-out deal and wanted to see Ireland play a “central role” in Europe. “Ireland’s debt burden is now unsustainable,” de Brún warned “and it is clear that Ireland will default in the time ahead. The policies that the EU-IMF have imposed on Ireland mean job losses, fierce cuts and a substantial reduction in public services. That is not the vision Irish people have...[full story]
Europe: Research in the marketplace
Friday, December 3rd, 2010Research Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn talks to Meadhbh Monahan about the need for more integration between researchers and business and the benefits of an EU patent. Europe’s Research, Innovation and Science Commissioner is “very impressed” with Northern Ireland’s progress within the ‘innovation union’. “If you look at the applications that Northern Ireland companies put in and the rate of success, Northern Ireland, like Ireland, [is] above the EU average,” she notes. The Commissioner was pleased at the UK’s decision not to cut research and innovation and she...[full story]
Europe: What should Europe be
Friday, July 9th, 2010Coolness and enthusiasm about the EU and its future can be sensed across the local political spectrum, as parties put forward their views on the purpose of the union. Alliance: Peace, stability and prosperity The main functions of the European Union are to provide peace and stability, to maximise prosperity of the region and to ensure that issues of mutual benefit and concern within Europe can be effectively addressed. The European Union was established after countries could see the benefits of co- operation following the end of the Second World War. Countries realised that working together...[full story]
