EU vs Ireland, Data Retention row - this is EXACTLY why I say the EU is too powerful

hatrickpatrick

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/european-court-rules-against-ireland-in-data-row-1635176.html

Now if this was up to the Irish government, we, the citizens, could set up a protest movement and stand a very good chance of forcing a change in policy through political agitation. How are we supposed to do this with an EU policy though? We're only one country of 27. This is what I meant when I compared the EU to EuroMillions - your ticket / vote stands counts for a lot less when you're one of tens of millions rather than one of 5 million. That's my fear about Lisbon - it makes this situation worse. And no one has shown me any convincing argument debunking what I've just said.

Hitman Actual

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/european-court-rules-against-ireland-in-data-row-1635176.html

Now if this was up to the Irish government, we, the citizens, could set up a protest movement and stand a very good chance of forcing a change in policy through political agitation. How are we supposed to do this with an EU policy though? We're only one country of 27. This is what I meant when I compared the EU to EuroMillions - your ticket / vote stands counts for a lot less when you're one of tens of millions rather than one of 5 million. That's my fear about Lisbon - it makes this situation worse. And no one has shown me any convincing argument debunking what I've just said.

You're missing the point of Ireland's case. We're not objecting to the data retention per se; in fact we currently have 3 years retention where the EU directive in question only requires 2 years. So what exactly is the 'protest movement' you talk about supposed to challenge?

The main point to the case, and one that I am worried about, is that the data retention directive in question is aimed at tackling crime/terrorism, but the legal base used is Article 95 TEC, which deals with Approximation of Laws in the Internal Market. Ireland's opinion, and one I completely agree with, is that this sort of directive should be introduced under the Third Pillar, JHA, which gives us much more control, and indeed opt-outs.

So I think the point of your post is wrong, but at the same time this 'cross-over' of legislation is something that I completely disagree with, and is one of the issues I have against the EU, despite being pro-Lisbon/EU.

sink

Hitman Actual wrote: »

You're missing the point of Ireland's case. We're not objecting to the data retention per se; in fact we currently have 3 years retention where the EU directive in question only requires 2 years. So what exactly is the 'protest movement' you talk about supposed to challenge?

The main point to the case, and one that I am worried about, is that the data retention directive in question is aimed at tackling crime/terrorism, but the legal base used is Article 95 TEC, which deals with Approximation of Laws in the Internal Market. Ireland's opinion, and one I completely agree with, is that this sort of directive should be introduced under the Third Pillar, JHA, which gives us much more control, and indeed opt-outs.

So I think the point of your post is wrong, but at the same time this 'cross-over' of legislation is something that I completely disagree with, and is one of the issues I have against the EU, despite being pro-Lisbon/EU.

I agree completely, this is a major problem with the EU. I don't have any problem with the data retention law, I only have a problem with the way it was introduced.

Scofflaw

I'll say very briefly why I find the opposite from hatrickpatrick - in a nutshell, it was the proposed EU software patents directive.

Like many others, I wrote to TDs and MEPs here, signed petitions on and offline, and generally supported the opposition to the directive.

In Ireland, nothing happened whatsoever - the Irish government remained the strongest advocate of the software patents bill, almost certainly as a result of pressure from Microsoft and other US software companies here. The patents directive itself was agreed during the Irish presidency.

So attempts by the ordinary Irish citizen to influence the Irish government were a complete washout.

The Directive was rejected by the EU Parliament, as a result of the same citizen lobbying that failed to move our government.

Now, I don't know about you, but I would call most democratic the representative body that is most influenced by citizens instead of corporate interests. In this case, without any doubt, that body was the EU Parliament, not the Irish government. That, in fact, is the main reason why our government took the case against the EU on the issue of data retention - it wanted the decision-making confined to the Council, where it could use the threat of veto to push for the more draconian measures it favours, without that pesky Parliament. The Irish government can safely ignore the Dáil - it cannot ignore the EU Parliament, but it can try to keep it out of the process.

I don't care where democracy happens - only that it happens. Just because the Irish government is our government does not mean it is automatically either democratic, or on our side.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Scofflaw

This is also typical of the EU:

EU threatens 'formal action' against UK.gov on Phorm

The European Commission has given its strongest signal yet that it will hold the UK government to account for its failure to act over BT and Phorm's secret and allegedly illegal internet monitoring trials in 2006 and 2007.

Telecoms commissioner Viviane Reding has again demanded answers from the UK as to why no enforcement action has been taken over the wiretapping and profiling of tens of thousands of BT broadband subscribers without any permission or notification. An unsatisfactory response could eventually land the government in the European Court of Justice.

cordially,
Scofflaw

sink

Scofflaw wrote: »

I'll say very briefly why I find the opposite from hatrickpatrick - in a nutshell, it was the proposed EU software patents directive.

Like many others, I wrote to TDs and MEPs here, signed petitions on and offline, and generally supported the opposition to the directive.

In Ireland, nothing happened whatsoever - the Irish government remained the strongest advocate of the software patents bill, almost certainly as a result of pressure from Microsoft and other US software companies here. The patents directive itself was agreed during the Irish presidency.

So attempts by the ordinary Irish citizen to influence the Irish government were a complete washout.

The Directive was rejected by the EU Parliament, as a result of the same citizen lobbying that failed to move our government.

Now, I don't know about you, but I would call most democratic the representative body that is most influenced by citizens instead of corporate interests. In this case, without any doubt, that body was the EU Parliament, not the Irish government. That, in fact, is the main reason why our government took the case against the EU on the issue of data retention - it wanted the decision-making confined to the Council, where it could use the threat of veto to push for the more draconian measures it favours, without that pesky Parliament. The Irish government can safely ignore the Dáil - it cannot ignore the EU Parliament, but it can try to keep it out of the process.

I don't care where democracy happens - only that it happens. Just because the Irish government is our government does not mean it is automatically either democratic, or on our side.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Regardless of our governments motives the fact that a directive which was clearly part of a JHA agenda, bypassed the JHA requirements by slipping in under the guise of the common market worries me. You know I am very pro EU but if any institution of the EU purposely acts to undermine the spirit of the ratification process as laid out by common agreement between all 27 members in order to achieve a a desired outcome of that institution, that is unacceptable in my book.

If our government goes against the will of the people it is up to the people to punish and replace them. The EU parliament and commission should not be attempting to bypass our government whether it is in our interest or not, because even though it is in our interest in this case, there is absolutely nothing stopping them doing similar against our better interests and over the objections of our government at some stage in the future. We have vetoes/opt outs in the area of JHA for a reason.

View

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/european-court-rules-against-ireland-in-data-row-1635176.html

Now if this was up to the Irish government, we, the citizens, could set up a protest movement and stand a very good chance of forcing a change in policy through political agitation. How are we supposed to do this with an EU policy though? We're only one country of 27. This is what I meant when I compared the EU to EuroMillions - your ticket / vote stands counts for a lot less when you're one of tens of millions rather than one of 5 million. That's my fear about Lisbon - it makes this situation worse. And no one has shown me any convincing argument debunking what I've just said.

Lisbon doesn't make the situation worse - the EU already makes lot of decisions, as you know. Under Lisbon, the role of the European Parliament is to be strengthened. It will have co-decision rights with the Council of Ministers in most, but sadly not all, areas. That means if you do/don't like a proposal, lobbying your local MEPs for/against the issue - i.e. a bit of old-fashioned political agitation - is your best bet. And, as the Parliament primarily votes and operates along party/idelogical lines, how MEPs would view an issue such as Data Retention mainly depends on where they are on the political spectrum.

By way of contrast, under Nice, you can lobby your MEPs all you like about proposals, but if they don't have the co-decision rights (to vote down/vote to support) them, you are largely wasting your time. Therefore, if you really DO want to be able to "set up a protest movement and stand a very good chance of forcing a change in policy through political agitation", voting to strengthen the hand of the MEPs you democratically elect is the way to go (as you can then lobby them to your hearts content).

View

sink wrote: »

Regardless of our governments motives the fact that a directive which was clearly part of a JHA agenda, bypassed the JHA requirements by slipping in under the guise of the common market worries me.

The whole point of the court case was to determine if the directive should have been introduced under the JHA rules or the Internal market provisions (as Data Retention rules have clear commerical implications for the relevant companies). Ireland made its case, the EC (presumably) made theirs and the ECJ made its ruling. That is what the ECJ is there for, after all. Issue resolved.

ChocolateSauce

Yep, as usual, the EUrocrats in their ivory towers have forced the Irish government to respect the rights of its citizens.

Scofflaw

sink wrote: »

Regardless of our governments motives the fact that a directive which was clearly part of a JHA agenda, bypassed the JHA requirements by slipping in under the guise of the common market worries me. You know I am very pro EU but if any institution of the EU purposely acts to undermine the spirit of the ratification process as laid out by common agreement between all 27 members in order to achieve a a desired outcome of that institution, that is unacceptable in my book.

If our government goes against the will of the people it is up to the people to punish and replace them. The EU parliament and commission should not be attempting to bypass our government whether it is in our interest or not, because even though it is in our interest in this case, there is absolutely nothing stopping them doing similar against our better interests and over the objections of our government at some stage in the future. We have vetoes/opt outs in the area of JHA for a reason.

I can see what you're saying here, and I largely agree with you. In the long run, certainly, it is not necessarily a good precedent. However, it is bounded by the willingness of the ECJ to rule in favour of the Commission rather than the member states - and the ECJ doesn't really have a one-way track record on that.

My disagreement, to the extent that I do disagree, is also based on my experience of the software patents directive as I outlined. I consider it an important point that the Irish government is not in fact particularly accountable, nor apparently amenable to public pressure short of public protest. Yes, in theory we can vote at general elections to 'punish and replace' the government - but in practice we do not do so. Elections in Ireland are local, not national - there is a huge element of the electorate that votes based on personal relations with the local TD (a cliche, but no less true for that). Dublin South-East, where contact with the local TD is far more impersonal, is regarded as madly volatile - which is to say that it's one of the few constituencies where a TD has relatively little chance of anointing a successor, which is why Ruairi Quinn is still hanging in there.

That means TDs are elected 'locally' to a far greater extent than in the UK, where the bulk of the electorate in any given constituency have never met their MP (and may not even know their names) - come election time, most people vote for the party, not the candidate, and based on their performance in national government. That is not what we do here.

Electing TDs on a local basis would be fine if it were not for the party whip system, which translates your vote for "Micky Joe whose father knew my father" into automatic support for government policies. In the last couple of decades, only two or three TDs have ever defied the whip, and then only on a couple of occasions. Combined with the substitution system, that means that the government need never lose a vote in the Dáil, rendering that chamber merely a rubber-stamp body for the government and a grandstanding platform for the opposition.

So, my problem is that the Irish government does not seem to be electorally accountable. While that is the case, their attempt to restrict decision-making to the Council looks to me like a simple continuation of that lack of accountability, and I am quite willing to substitute EU Parliamentary control for the missing Dáil control.

On balance, then, I appreciate what you're saying - that if almost anything can be passed through the 'approximation of laws' route then our opt-outs and vetoes on JHA legislation are rendered meaningless. However, I don't think anything can go through - if anything, here it was the willingness of every EU government to introduce such data retention laws domestically that made it a matter of market balance.

cordially,
and a little ambivalently,
Scofflaw