Ireland and EU money

Kovik

Over the last few days, quite a few (admittedly, mainly British) commentators have made statements to the effect of "European money dragged the Irish economy out of poverty" (some guy on Sky).

I don't know enough on the issue to respond to these suggestions. My view has mostly been that the turn around in the economy can be attributed to a few policy changes that the EU would not generally have welcomed, such as the drastic reformation of our tax philosophy and the investment in education as capital expenditure.

Naturally, EU development funds have been critical to the development of infrastructure in particular, but is it proper to claim EU money simply flooded the country?

Ponster

€60 billion over 25 years I think is what has been quoted in several other threads.

Up to you if you think the money has been well spent or not but looking at other EU countries like Portugal I personally think that Ireland would be a 'poorer' country had it not been for those structural funds.

Scofflaw

Kovik wrote: »

Over the last few days, quite a few (admittedly, mainly British) commentators have made statements to the effect of "European money dragged the Irish economy out of poverty" (some guy on Sky).

I don't know enough on the issue to respond to these suggestions. My view has mostly been that the turn around in the economy can be attributed to a few policy changes that the EU would not generally have welcomed, such as the drastic reformation of our tax philosophy and the investment in education as capital expenditure.

Naturally, EU development funds have been critical to the development of infrastructure in particular, but is it proper to claim EU money simply flooded the country?

EU money was paid directly to the state as structural funds and CAP, thereby subsidising both our infrastructure and our rural communities.

That, in turn, enabled the Irish government to opt for a lower tax rate while still building infrastructure and investing in education.

Add in the value of access to the EU market, and the FDI that we gathered by virtue of our low tax rate and said market access, and you'll find that EU membership has been worth absolutely staggering quantities of money to Ireland.


cordially,
Scofflaw

Kovik

Scofflaw wrote: »

EU money was paid directly to the state as structural funds and CAP, thereby subsidising both our infrastructure and our rural communities.

That, in turn, enabled the Irish government to opt for a lower tax rate while still building infrastructure and investing in education.

Add in the value of access to the EU market, and the FDI that we gathered by virtue of our low tax rate and said market access, and you'll find that EU membership has been worth absolutely staggering quantities of money to Ireland.


cordially,
Scofflaw

Certainly, there's no question that EU membership has been absolutely invaluable to Ireland, but would you agree with the assessment that I cited above (that the EU essentially dragged the Irish economy out of ruin or, in other words, that the success of the Irish economy can be essentially credited to Europe)?

mike65

The total monies given over has been 33 billion so far but I doubt that is inflation adjusted (though the bulk of the cash has come in the last 15 years or so).

Of course its not a one way street, now Ireland is Moneybags Inc. the cash will be flowing the other way so slowly we'll be "paying off" the funding.

Mike.

Scofflaw

Kovik wrote: »

Certainly, there's no question that EU membership has been absolutely invaluable to Ireland, but would you agree with the assessment that I cited above (that the EU essentially dragged the Irish economy out of ruin or, in other words, that the success of the Irish economy can be essentially credited to Europe)?

Not entirely. The money came in, but our economic and social policies were dire - high tax rates with no ability to enforce them, tax bands where a pay rise left you worse off, dirigisme, red tape, loathsomely tight banks, appalling utility companies. A friend of mine in the early 80's was a telephone engineer - he spent his whole time on nixers. It could take you a week physically getting a phone installed while the engineer popped in and out doing nixers for other people - that would be after waiting months because each 'official' phone install was cover for several nixers....so, eventually, you got on the nixer list as well.

The EU money could have gone on being poured down the drain, but there was a sea-change in the late 80's and early 90's - I remember them having government "lateral thinking" workshops with people like Edward de Bono, out of which things like the "Back to Work" scheme and low corporation tax emerged.

So the money by itself didn't create the Celtic Tiger, any more than capital investment by itself could create a world-class company. EU money and Irish nous did it together - and to be fair, it was Irish nous that won a lot of the money from the EU in the first place, over and above what might have been expected.

It's instructive to look at how aid money is spent in third world countries - you can blow the lot on vanity projects, like a huge motorway from the capital to somewhere pointless, and which you'll never have the money to maintain - and ten years later you'll have nothing to show for it. Examples are endless.

cordially,
Scofflaw

A Random Walk

Multinationals locate here because they get access to EU markets. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that low corporation tax is the primary reason, the primary reason is access. Without access to EU markets, Ireland is a market of 4 million people - with EU access, you can supply 500 million people from Ireland.

marco_polo

A Random Walk wrote: »

Multinationals locate here because they get access to EU markets. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that low corporation tax is the primary reason, the primary reason is access. Without access to EU markets, Ireland is a market of 4 million people - with EU access, you can supply 500 million people from Ireland.

A slight flaw in your argument is that there are 26 other countries that would supply the same level of access to the EU market.

turgon

Oh Yes. They gave us loads of money, and what ungrateful loafes you were to vote No. Bad Irish, bad Irish, haven't you learned that you must accept all that we throw you, given the money you have harvested off of us???

Triangle

marco_polo wrote: »

A slight flaw in your argument is that there are 26 other countries that would supply the same level of access to the EU market.

Marco,
Read his post and THINK before posting..... as was said ..... the pirmary reason for setting up in ireland is the access to 500 million people.
out of four options

1) 4 million people and low taxation
2) 500 million and low taxation
3) 500 million and standard taxation
4) 4 million and standard taxation

I'd say option one would not be of much benefit to companies outside EU who want to access the power of selling to 500 million people......

Triangle

turgon wrote: »

Oh Yes. They gave us loads of money, and what ungrateful loafes you were to vote No. Bad Irish, bad Irish, haven't you learned that you must accept all that we throw you, given the money you have harvested off of us???

nice to have meaningful arguments again.......Turgon - please stay on topic (this has nothing to do with the vote). The OP asked if the money Ireland got from EU help us out of recession or 'delivered' us from recession. (Sorry OP if i got that wrong)

nhughes100

Take the money(structural funds, cap etc) out of the EU and tell me what incentives there are for further integration. It's one thing that baffles me about the last group of states to join. They realise their independance again or for the first time in a long time and then within 10-20 years and some sooner then they can't wait to sell their new found sovereignty to the EU.

I could understand it if it was just a trading community ala the EEC Ireland a lot of the new accession states are chasing rainbows. They can't all have the boom that Ireland experienced and during my travels through some of these places I'd have to say their infrastructure wasn't half bad - Mulitple tram lines through city centres- imagine....

Triangle

I'd say a big one is security - we take it for granted, but alot of countries worldwide have issues with it (constant threat of invasion/rebels etc)
Give a country membership to a secure EU and provision to expand it's trading and it's like honey ot bees.

But to be honest, i've only started taking an interest in the EU since the Lisbon treaty (sorry i mentioned it after one of my last posts!!!)

A Random Walk

nhughes100 wrote: »

Take the money(structural funds, cap etc) out of the EU and tell me what incentives there are for further integration. It's one thing that baffles me about the last group of states to join. They realise their independance again or for the first time in a long time and then within 10-20 years and some sooner then they can't wait to sell their new found sovereignty to the EU.

It would be worthwhile to do some reading on the founding of the EU (google Jean Monet). The problem for Ireland is we've always defined our membership of the EU in economic terms so I understand your bafflement because the EU was never intended to be simply a free trade area.

The EU was setup in response to the World Wars and frankly 1000 years of European countries at war with each other. The intention was to form closer bonds, pool sovereignty and to foster mutual interdependence such that Europe would never have to suffer through such devastating wars in the future. The economic aspect was simply a tool in all this, the real destination was political and cultural.

Ireland didn't suffer devastation in the 20th century and joined primarily for the money on offer. This notion has persisted to the present day and comes through in the last vote. As you say yourself "what incentives are there for further integration"? If you were German and have relatives who lived through the devastation of Berlin you would know, as would most of the rest of Central and Eastern Europe. European aid money is used partly as an enticement but really it is intended to try and smooth out differences in wealth across the continent and to encourage stable democracies. Wealthy democratic countries simply don't go to war with each other.

At European summit meetings, when difficult decisions were on the agenda to drive forward the EU – to introduce more majority voting in the Single European Act or to launch the euro in the Maastricht treaty – he would quote the words of his ageing mother to insist European integration must make another European war unthinkable. He never lost sight of that idea.

(an FT comment on Helmut Kohl, ex German Chancellor)

I hear many Irish people talking about rejecting Lisbon because they are happy with the status quo. I'm sorry, but the status quo is not on offer. The "core" Europeans want to move forward with their political project and they're not going to let what they see as aa greedy money grabbing Ireland stand in their way. They'd like to see us on-board and have helped us immensely, but we don't have the same guttural imperative that most Europeans have.

We need to decide what we want. Do we want the enormous financial benefits of being part of an integrating Europe or do we want to go our own way. Do we believe in the European "ideal" or not?

i57dwun4yb1pt8

on a slightly humourous note ,after all this subsidising and after posting a for sale ad on Adverts

maybe the EURO should now be called the EUNO

thehighground

Ireland suffered greatly because of the 2nd World War - because of its neutral stance (which was viewed as siding with Germany) we didn't receive Marshall Aid. When the EEC (European Economic Community)was set up and what we joined eventually in 1973, Ireland was a very young country.

There has been very little discussion about all the social aspects to the EU and maybe its timely now that we figure out where we want to be.

I think when you are discussing Ireland's financial gain from the EU, most European like to forget that our main (only) natural resource, fishing rights were handed over (I believe in today's money worth about 100 bn) so we don't owe anything to anyone in Europe. Major beneficiaries (largest fishing fleets) were UK, Spain & France! These stocks in our territorial water are now fairly well depleted.

I think I read somewhere that what received over the 25 years or so, would amount to something like 5% of any of our annual GDP. Most of this went in farming subsidies, where it could be argued they were subsidising large, industrialised European populations as their was a food shortages in Europe after the war.

Another thing that annoys me greatly, is that other countries were in the same boat as Ireland (though, not as badly off) and had the same opportunities as ourselves (Portugal comes to mind - they have some very good roads and football stadia!), and we made the most of what we were given - and our GDP is greater, we work longer hours than most other people in Europe.

Worth reading up on is The Emergency and aftermath to get the Irish angle on this whole European project.

FrankGrimes

thehighground wrote: »

Ireland suffered greatly because of the 2nd World War - because of its neutral stance (which was viewed as siding with Germany) we didn't receive Marshall Aid. When the EEC (European Economic Community)was set up and what we joined eventually in 1973, Ireland was a very young country.

There has been very little discussion about all the social aspects to the EU and maybe its timely now that we figure out where we want to be.

I think when you are discussing Ireland's financial gain from the EU, most European like to forget that our main (only) natural resource, fishing rights were handed over (I believe in today's money worth about 100 bn) so we don't owe anything to anyone in Europe. Major beneficiaries (largest fishing fleets) were UK, Spain & France! These stocks in our territorial water are now fairly well depleted.

I think I read somewhere that what received over the 25 years or so, would amount to something like 5% of any of our annual GDP. Most of this went in farming subsidies, where it could be argued they were subsidising large, industrialised European populations as their was a food shortages in Europe after the war.

Another thing that annoys me greatly, is that other countries were in the same boat as Ireland (though, not as badly off) and had the same opportunities as ourselves (Portugal comes to mind - they have some very good roads and football stadia!), and we made the most of what we were given - and our GDP is greater, we work longer hours than most other people in Europe.

Worth reading up on is The Emergency and aftermath to get the Irish angle on this whole European project.

The more I see posts like this, the more convinced I am that there is a very significant portion of the Irish public out there that have a highly misinformed 'we don't owe Europe anything' attitude. Please refer to this thread for clarification on two points:

1. The value of the fisheries money 'handed over' to Europe is dramatically lower than you and many others seem to believe (this asks the question - where does this level of misinformation come from)?

2. It is indisputable that Ireland has been a massive beneficiary of EU funding over the course of our involvement (and have only recently become net contributors).

Now, that doesn't mean that we owe Europe anything or that we have to vote Yes because we benefitted economically (in my opinion the fact we didn't spend the cash all that well is our own fault, not the EU's), but at least let's form whatever opinion we come to based on real facts and not gross misinformation.

thehighground

You are basing it on Irish tax take

I'm basing it on the fact that UK, French & Spanish trawlers fished in Irish territorial waters (we own what is under, in etc 200 mile radius of the Irish coast going into Atlantic for example) and landed their catch in their own countries, so we get absolutely nothing from them. And its legal.

Spain's 2005 fishing industry has halved since 1995. That is not due to people eating less fish you know! (Its a bit late now to actually sort out the figrues for you).

limklad

Here a picture just formulated in my head about the EU.


It is beginning to look like that the EU was just bribing us off to vote their way all along that our Politicians never told us (the electorate). I thought they were just generous to give us a helping hand up to straighten ourselves and now we are net contributors and ready to pay back to help other poorer countries, they (the EU) now start battering us because they cannot bribe us anymore to vote their way.

Are we sure that our Politicians own bank balance is not swelled with EU black money?

Scofflaw

thehighground wrote: »

You are basing it on Irish tax take

I'm basing it on the fact that UK, French & Spanish trawlers fished in Irish territorial waters (we own what is under, in etc 200 mile radius of the Irish coast going into Atlantic for example) and landed their catch in their own countries, so we get absolutely nothing from them. And its legal.

Spain's 2005 fishing industry has halved since 1995. That is not due to people eating less fish you know! (Its a bit late now to actually sort out the figrues for you).

No, the figures are based on what all the other nations got out of Irish waters - the French, Spanish, British, etc. The original source for the figures is a Department of the Marine paper on how much comes out of the Irish Box (€460m in 2004), and how much of that is fished by Ireland (30%).

What is being calculated is what the Irish government would have made out of that fish (€1.4 bn), or the value of the fish that the other EU nations have caught in Irish waters since we joined the EU (€11.27 bn) - because that is what we have "lost", either to State coffers or to the Irish economy.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

limklad wrote: »

Here a picture just formulated in my head about the EU.


It is beginning to look like that the EU was just bribing us off to vote their way all along that our Politicians never told us (the electorate). I thought they were just generous to give us a helping hand up to straighten ourselves and now we are net contributors and ready to pay back to help other poorer countries, they (the EU) now start battering us because they cannot bribe us anymore to vote their way.

Are we sure that our Politicians own bank balance is not swelled with EU black money?

We joined the EU in 1973, and immediately started receiving aid from the EU. The Crotty case, which required us to put EU treaties to referendum, wasn't until 1987.

Why not just face facts? We have done well out of the EU. That's why we want to stay in it. It's why no Irish political party, including Sinn Fein, actually admits to being anti-EU. If that makes you feel guilty for voting No, that's between you and your conscience. It didn't make me feel guilty for voting No at Nice, but I didn't pretend that "really" we hadn't benefited, because anyone who was adult in the 80's knows full well we did.

cordially,
Scofflaw

thehighground

Scofflaw wrote: »

No, the figures are based on what all the other nations got out of Irish waters - the French, Spanish, British, etc. The original source for the figures is a Department of the Marine paper on how much comes out of the Irish Box (€460m in 2004), and how much of that is fished by Ireland (30%).

What is being calculated is what the Irish government would have made out of that fish (€1.4 bn), or the value of the fish that the other EU nations have caught in Irish waters since we joined the EU (€11.27 bn) - because that is what we have "lost", either to State coffers or to the Irish economy.

cordially,
Scofflaw

(1) Do you believe Dept. of Marine figures (considering most intelligent people think it was a crime against Irish people what happened about our territorial fishing rights)

(2) The 2004 Spanish fish catch has halved since 1995 - I wonder why they chose those 2004 - the fact that fishing off the coast of Ireland was finished at that stage might have something to do with that, don't you think?

3) Can you explain the mechanism how a Spanish fishing trawler contributes to the Irish exchequer considering he lands his fish in Spain, he sells them in Spain and he pays his tax in Spain?

thehighground

Scofflaw wrote: »

We joined the EU in 1973, and immediately started receiving aid from the EU. The Crotty case, which required us to put EU treaties to referendum, wasn't until 1987.

Why not just face facts? We have done well out of the EU. That's why we want to stay in it. It's why no Irish political party, including Sinn Fein, actually admits to being anti-EU. If that makes you feel guilty for voting No, that's between you and your conscience. It didn't make me feel guilty for voting No at Nice, but I didn't pretend that "really" we hadn't benefited, because anyone who was adult in the 80's knows full well we did.

cordially,
Scofflaw

No we didn't join the EU (European Union) in 1973. We joined the EEC (European Economic Community).;)

Scofflaw

thehighground wrote: »

(1) Do you believe Dept. of Marine figures (considering most intelligent people think it was a crime against Irish people what happened about our territorial fishing rights)

I may not be willing to believe what a Minister says in public, but I have no problem with technical papers. If you're willing to believe that the entire Irish civil service, root and branch including the scientific staff, lie in every publication, we're really not going to have a very fruitful discussion.

thehighground wrote: »

(2) The 2004 Spanish fish catch has halved since 1995 - I wonder why they chose those 2004 - the fact that fishing off the coast of Ireland was finished at that stage might have something to do with that, don't you think?

They chose it because it was the year they were interested in in the paper they wrote - almost certainly because it was the last year on record at the time the paper was written. I in turn chose it because it was an available expert paper with hard numbers in it.

Further, one should consider that Spain only joined in 1986, and still do not have unrestricted access to the Irish box. Until 1996, vessels had to register in Ireland before being granted licenses to fish in the Irish Box, and after 1996 only 40 Spanish vessels a year were granted licenses.

thehighground wrote: »

3) Can you explain the mechanism how a Spanish fishing trawler contributes to the Irish exchequer considering he lands his fish in Spain, he sells them in Spain and he pays his tax in Spain?

He doesn't. I'm afraid you may have missed the whole point of the calculations - the whole argument that the EU has had more out of us in fish than they have given us in funds relies on an estimation of what the Irish fisheries would have been worth to the Irish economy (as an industry, not an asset) over the period of EU membership.

In order to calculate that figure, I am using the total landed EU catch from Irish waters, including all countries - Spain, France, etc - and subtracting the Irish catch to get a figure that shows how much catch we were foregoing by allowing other EU countries to fish in our waters. For 2004, the total amount of fish caught by everyone in Irish waters was €460m. Of that, the Irish caught 30% (€140m). Therefore, in 2004, we "lost to other EU countries" €320m worth of fish that we could have fished, had we done an Iceland and stayed out of the EU (and developed our fishing industry).

That is what the calculations are based on - the amount of fish harvested in Irish waters by non-Irish EU vessels over the period we have been in the EU. That is the value "the EU" has had out of our waters.

cordially,
Scofflaw

nesf

A Random Walk wrote: »

Multinationals locate here because they get access to EU markets. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that low corporation tax is the primary reason, the primary reason is access. Without access to EU markets, Ireland is a market of 4 million people - with EU access, you can supply 500 million people from Ireland.

Considering the degree of transfer pricing going on, I wouldn't dismiss the tax rate as irrelevant, it's not the sole factor that politicians often would like to think it is, but it was a factor.

A Random Walk

This fishing argument is utterly spurious and I'm surprised so many otherwise intelligent individuals are falling for it. The Irish economy is a €100bn economy, about half of which is generated by multinationals. Those multinationals are located here because they get access to the EU markets, remove that access and they wouldn't have located here. It doesn't matter whether fishery was worth 1 or 100 billion to us, access to EU markets is generating 50 billion a year on its own.

Besides which, in the negotiations to join the EEC we essentially sacrificed our fisheries to get more money for our farmers. Considering we didn't have a major fishing fleet, that was probably a wise move. Our farmers as a result are receiving several billion euro a year from the EU.

marco_polo

Triangle wrote: »

Marco,
Read his post and THINK before posting..... as was said ..... the pirmary reason for setting up in ireland is the access to 500 million people.
out of four options

1) 4 million people and low taxation
2) 500 million and low taxation
3) 500 million and standard taxation
4) 4 million and standard taxation

I'd say option one would not be of much benefit to companies outside EU who want to access the power of selling to 500 million people......

Just to clarify your I interpreted your point as being that that Ireland membership of the EU was the key factor in Multinationals locating here rather than the low corporation tax rate. My point was simply that that they could have the exact same access to the EU markets from any one of 26 other countries, so our low corporation tax is an equally important factor.

Although perhaps you are measuring importance by which of these it would be worse to do without, in that case I would agree that low taxation without EU membership is worthless.

nhughes100

Agreed that the fishing argument is somewhat spurious to this thread but I do have sympathy for the Irish fishermen as I have stated in other relvevant threads. I don't see fishing as being our greatest natural resource, there's far more people employed in agriculture and it creates more of our GDP then fish.

My initial argument was about taking the grants out of the EU and what do we have left. I having read any of Monet's stuff so I can't dispute his arguments but history shows us that the present EU was setup as the European coal and steel community and then evolved into the European Economic Community. It wasn't until Maastricht that things started to swerve towards further integration and the first mentions of a more federal union.

The thought that member states operate on even remotely close to a level playing field with regards to infrastructure, economies and even the cost of basic necessities across the EU is simply not true. I don't personally think it ever will either. The US which is far more federal has huge gaps in the cost and quality of life from city to city, nevermind state to state. Yet they share far more culturally then the European states.

A lot of the bleating from Brussels about the no vote last week has centered around all the money Ireland got in the past. My view is that money carried no preconditions on further integration and all the projects are subject to EU ratificaton which I can tell you is very strict. Anyone who has ever done a tender for a public sector body will tell you that. Let me make a day to day example, I got a patio in my back garden last week, I got a contracter to do it and we agreed a price. Once the job was done it was paid for and he has a guarentee on the work he has done. Using the EU's logic the contracter is now committed to any further work in the garden and also should any faults arise with the front garden he should also fix them as well.

The same way in which laws can't be retrospective I do not believe that any funding committed in the past in any way obliges us to be pro EU no matter what route that takes.

The Corinthian

nhughes100 wrote: »

I having read any of Monet's stuff so I can't dispute his arguments but history shows us that the present EU was setup as the European coal and steel community and then evolved into the European Economic Community. It wasn't until Maastricht that things started to swerve towards further integration and the first mentions of a more federal union.

Actually the 1950 Schuman Declaration that called for the formation of the European coal and steel community specifically cited it as a step in the direction of European unification:

"Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity."

The same way in which laws can't be retrospective I do not believe that any funding committed in the past in any way obliges us to be pro EU no matter what route that takes.

The problem is that we do not appear to feel any obligation. We were happy to take the funds when it suited us and now that we have them we appear to have forgotten about it.

Scofflaw

My view is that money carried no preconditions on further integration

I agree with you entirely there. The problem I have with the fisheries argument (and other such) is that they are patently false. However, that they are false does not leave us obliged to simply rubberstamp anything the EU does - I voted for the Treaty on its merits, not because of what the EU has done for us in the past.

cordially,
Scofflaw

limklad

Scofflaw wrote: »

Why not just face facts? We have done well out of the EU. That's why we want to stay in it. It's why no Irish political party, including Sinn Fein, actually admits to being anti-EU. If that makes you feel guilty for voting No, that's between you and your conscience. It didn't make me feel guilty for voting No at Nice, but I didn't pretend that "really" we hadn't benefited, because anyone who was adult in the 80's knows full well we did.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Of course we did well under previous treaties because the larger nations wanted to improve Europe because of socialist ideals. Times have change and the EU is expanding at fast rate. The Lisbon treaty is changing that form and the form of the EU governing structures and that does not gives the right for leaders of each country to bypass the people.

To be emotionally bullied by using the money argument is wrong in any sense of the world and as it goes against the principles in which the EU was built upon, and it would be very foolish to give in under that pressure.
I will never feel guilty for protecting democracy by been cautious and I would be very foolish not to read the fine print of futures treaties and foolish not to listen to other people concerns and finding competent answers to those concerns before giving away more powers or changing the rules in which the EU is to be govern by.

I am also concern about the self amending part of the treaty in which EU leaders can change without going to the people. I have got no full clarification on that, and any questions about it was never explained, it kept been brushed off and attention was drawn to Past benefits of the EU. The Past benefits were because of previous treaties, so I did not want them to change the current treaties, since the politicians kept talking about them in how good they were to us, so there was no point to change the status quo. Therefore it is a perfectly good reason to vote NO.

I watch some time back on a UK TV interview on youtube ( I think) with a British MP who was defending Lisbon treaty said that 60 New areas been transferred under Lisbon treaty to the EU. None of the areas was explain by our government. No full mention of the list though as the interview changed topic to other parts of the ratification process. I was looking for it now but cannot find the link. I think it was a BBC political programme, I post the link when I find it. I would appriciate if someone could help me find it again.

I already know the full history of Ireland and the reason about why we had a referendum for each EEC/EC/EU treaty. I mention it many times in other posts.