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14 December 2006 Edition

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This news feature is funded by the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL)

This news feature is funded by the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL)

North West delegation in Brussels

On Wednesday, 6 December, a 25-strong delegation from the North West of Ireland joined Sinn Féin’s Bairbre de Brún MEP and Mitchel McLaughlin MLA at the European Parliament in Brussels. The delegation was made up of business leaders, community activists and political representatives including Sinn Féin Councillors Pádraig Mac Lochlainn, Pearse Doherty, Gerry MacLochlainn, Sean McPeake and Jarlath McNulty, as well as Gráinne Mhic Géidigh of Údarás na Gaeltachta.
Representatives from the chambers of commerce of Derry, Strabane, Letterkenny and Gaoth Dobhair made the trip to the Parliament to lobby and influence EU officials and MEPs and to discuss practical ways in which the EU could aid the development of the North West region.
The intensive series of meetings included a discussion with European Commission officials on Territorial Co-operation and cross-border development and meetings with Kyriacos Charambulous, Commission staff for Peace and the International Fund for Ireland to explore how the programmes will operate over the coming period. A further meeting took place on state aid regulations and their relationship to regional development.
In an interesting and useful exchange of views, the delegation met with Jan Olbrycht MEP, the EU Parliament’s draftsperson for the Parliament’s report on the new proposed European Groupings of Territorial Co-operation. The discussions centred on future and potential cross-border co-operation. Other meetings included a session with Birgit Arens, Regional Development Officer at Eurochambres (the European organisation of Chambers of Commerce), and a briefing from the Irish Regions Office and Six County Executive to learn more about their work at European level.

Partition
The day’s events provided an opportunity for the delegation to speak directly to EU officials, from both the Parliament and the European Commission, on issues that affect them on a daily basis. EU officials heard individual stories of how partition and the border are obstructing provision of essential services, including health and infrastructure, and creating trade and social barriers.
Speaking during the day-long series of meetings, Bairbre de Brún said that the meetings provided an opportunity to “explore the opportunities for an integrated approach to development in the North West of Ireland, which remains the most disadvantaged region in the country in terms of infrastructure and service provision.
“Support for valuable cross-border planning and development is crucial if the North West is to become a competitive region, and the EU has a huge role to play in assisting this region to fulfil its massive potential.
“The meetings with the European Commission and MEPs looked not only at the next round of EU funding, both for cross-border work and for PEACE and IFI, but will look at other proposals from the EU that could benefit closer working between local structures in the border areas.”

Poorest region
Speaking after the event, Mitchel McLaughlin said that the border corridor area had clearly suffered the most from partition and was characterised by “high unemployment, poor educational facilities and low educational attainment, rural isolation, inadequate health systems, poor communications, high energy costs and weak transport infrastructure. The border corridor area is the poorest region in Ireland and the North West is the poorest area of the poorest region.”
Bairbre de Brún said: “We are about putting together an integrated approach to tackling this deprivation and underinvestment. During our meetings today, we have sought support for a North West Regional Economic Development Strategy and a North West Regional Economic Authority. We have also sought EU funding for a proposal, which is at an advanced stage, for a North West Medical School, which will involve co-operation between NUI in Galway, Magee in Derry and the IT colleges in Sligo and Letterkenny.”
The delegation was viewed by all concerned as positive, and much good work has been accomplished.


EU Steamroller

BY BRIAN DENNY


After the so-called “period of reflection” following the French and Dutch rejection of the EU constitution, Germany has announced that it will use its presidency of the EU to impose it anyway. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has insisted that her country’s presidency, which begins in January, will relaunch the discredited document.
“We need a constitutional treaty and we need it before the next European election,” she said.
The election will be in 2009. Merkel will also work closely with Portugal and Slovenia, the next two states to hold the EU presidency, to put the constitution in place after Berlin’s six-month stint ends in July.
Just to recap, this constitution would create a European army to carry out a single EU foreign policy, make euro membership compulsory, turn the EU into a single legal entity with its own unaccountable courts and police, enforce unfair trade deals and privatisation and abolish all the powers associated with modern nation states.
After meeting European Commission president Jose Barroso, Merkel reiterated that the EU constitution should not be slimmed down to make it more acceptable to increasingly hostile EU voters. She has not specified how to sell the abolition of representative democracy, but is expected to produce some meaningless flam about the so-called ‘European social model’.

Giving the game away
This relaunch has clearly emerged from a brainstorming session in Brussels. Former commission president Romano Prodi gave the game away when he grandly announced in the Financial Times two weeks ago that “last year was the year of mourning (for the constitution); this year is the year of reflection. Next year will be the launching.”
To you and me, that is Euro-speak for “last year, the constitution was rejected; this year, we ignored results and, in 2007, we will impose it anyway”.
EU commissioner Margot Wallstrom backed this deeply cynical strategy by confirming that “the commission would not like to depart too much from the constitutional treaty”.
However, the federalists are in a very difficult position, amid divisions among themselves and growing public hostility to EU institutions and the synthetic single currency.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has described the constitution as a “grandiose project which didn’t come off”, a clear sign that the British Government is distancing itself from an unpopular project.
Wallstrom has demanded that the abolition of national vetoes be written into the text for the touchingly simple reason that “if you start to open up, you open everything”
Yet even Germany’s own constitutional court has put off rubber-stamping the constitution after German MP Peter Gauweiler challenged parliamentary ratification on the grounds that it would deprive Berlin of its power. Moreover, Merkel’s cabinet approval last month of plans to turn the German conscript army into a global intervention force within the European Union also proved to be a disaster, after a military scandal broke in the media the very next day.

Shocking photographs
Shocking photographs of Bundeswehr soldiers desecrating human skulls in Afghanistation, including an image of a soldier simulating oral sex, printed in the mass-circulation Bild newspaper have not endeared the German public to revanchist euro-militarism. Germany’s KSK special military forces are also facing a parliamentary investigation after being accused of torturing a German-born prisoner in Afghanistan and spiriting him away to spend over four years in Guantanamo Bay before being released.
There are already over 9,000 troops overseas in Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia and Congo. The Government argues that military capacity must be expanded to deploy 14,000 troops on at least five foreign imperialist adventures simultaneously. Ordinary Germans may see things differently.
The German political class is simply repeating what other EU elites are doing: ignoring domestic democratic aspirations in order to fulfil the euro-federalist agenda to build an anti-democratic superstate fit for corporate interests. But that is no easy task.
Just as the ‘liberal’ proponents of military intervention in Iraq and elsewhere are increasingly bereft of any intellectual justification for endless war, while their leader George W Bush faces the wrath of the US public, so the federalists in Europe are being similarly exposed as they try to build an imperialist military empire in the image of the US.
For the left to confront these twin threats effectively, it must put forward a real alternative and argue for democracy, self-determination and peace, not only in Iraq but across the EU as well.

Turkish surprise move confuses EU diplomacy

Turkey’s last-ditch offer to open one port and one airport to Cypriot traffic appears only to have complicated EU efforts to find a common stance on the fate of Ankara’s membership talks.
EU member states’ representations in Brussels signalled confusion on Thursday of last week over a morning proposal from Ankara to start allowing trade from member state Cyprus, in a bid to avert a partial freeze of its EU membership negotiations.
The “unclear” language of the Turkish proposal prompted the Finnish EU presidency to shift a meeting of member states’ EU ambassadors on the issue to Friday 8 December.
“This can either be the golden goal or a trick cigar,” one EU diplomat stated.
Finnish foreign minister Erkki Tuomioja confirmed in a statement that Ankara intends to “provisionally open a major sea port to Cypriot vessels”, partially fulfilling a key obligation under the so-called Ankara protocol which prohibits blocking trade from EU member states.
“Turkey’s initiative is a positive step towards full implementation of the Ankara protocol, but still needs clarification,” Mr Tuomioja said, referring to a second part of the plan in which Ankara also signalled it would open an airport to Cypriot commercial flights.
Some diplomats said that Ankara apparently made the opening of one airport conditional on a parallel move by Cyprus to allow the opening of one airport in Turkish-controlled Northern Cyprus, which is under an international trade embargo.
While Finnish presidency sources said they were still seeking clarification from the Turks, both the presidency and the European Commission reacted cautiously but positively to Ankara’s willingness to open at least one port without conditions.
“If Turkey is ready for such an unconditional move, this positive step will influence the Council’s [member states’] discussions on the continuation of Turkey’s EU accession process,” said Mr Tuomioja, with the commission calling it an “important step” if confirmed.
A diplomat from a large western member state suggested that the European Commission should look at Ankara’s proposal as early as Thursday night before member states’ ambassadors meet again on Friday.
He added that Brussels might need to “reconsider” its recommendation, made last week, to partially freeze Turkey’s membership talks.
The Commission is recommending the suspension of the opening of eight chapters of Turkey’s 35-strong EU negotiations book as a sanction for Turkey’s refusal to implement the Ankara protocol before the end of the year.  Talks on the remaining chapters could continue.

Continuing rift
The Commission proposal forms the basis for discussions by EU foreign ministers at a key meeting on Monday, 11 December.  These discussions revealed deep divisions between those member states taking a soft line on Turkey and those wanting to push a harder line.
Turkey’s latest move seems to have done little to bridge these divides, with diplomats saying that Cyprus suspects Turkey of wanting to derail the meeting with an eleventh hour, partial concession.
According to DPA press agency, a Cypriot spokesperson said that Nicosia would in any case not allow the opening of any airport in the North of the island, while a Greek Foreign Ministry spokesperson said the opening of just one port is not enough.
German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on the other hand, said that Turkey appeared to be showing a “cautious readiness to make concessions”.
In a strong positive reaction, a British official told reporters that “We have been pressing the Turkish Government to implement its obligations. A unilateral move would be courageous and positive. It is essential that the EU responds.”
Turkey’s EU accession talks will continue to be highly charged in the months ahead. This  Monday EU foreign ministers decided to continue the bulk of chapters in Ankara’s negotiating book. However Cyprus has hinted that it may still use its veto to block progress in the negotiations.


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