Ursula Von Der Leyen - addressing the Oireachtas yesterday. Opinions on her speech?

@eskimohunt

Sigh, it still needs Parliament and either all of or a qualified majority of the Council (i.e. the member states) to support what it is putting forward, so it cannot "decide legislation unilaterally".

The Council & the Parliaments' committees/groups also get view of what Commission is coming up with, even if they don't have power to propose the law themselves. It doesn't come down from the mists of the mountain summit on tablets or as a thunderbolt from a blue sky.

I don't know why you flog this dead horse. Your earlier reading of link you posted explaining processes of creating the EU law and role of the Parliament for laypeople like me was incomplete. Given I'm a non expert, If you are a lawyer or legal expert when it comes to the EU, I would like some more support from you that the EU parliament cannot amend legislation or it cannot block legislation in some cases.

If procedure set out in link(s) we both ended up posting is basically wrong, and you have the right of it /what is explained in the Europa links is actually "not legally binding" + gets overruled, show us that. 

What I make of it is federalists like Verhofstadt want an EU federal state to develop. Perhaps they hope adopting analagous terminology from nation states (another e.g. - the abortive European "Constitution") will help grow the idea in people's minds + gain more support for it or belief in it (even if it does severly rile up people like you - but then they probably think those who want to see the EU collapse cannot ever be won over anyway).

I said I don't agree with the process + how she was appointed. My description of what happened was not "faux" reform however. They did try to bring the EU electorate into it somewhat last time ,or perhaps the EU parliament made some play to insert themselves and almost suceeded, but Council put a stop to it. Really we need EU treaty change to improve this and define a more democratic process IMO but of course you will be bellering "vote no" at top of your voice if such a treaty ever arrives & we have to vote on it here, no matter what is in it.

It is reality, where as you are living in "Europe of the nations" (sans EU) dream land (or just lying again because your politics are a hard sell here). The bun fights that will erupt across Europe if the EU collapses will make Brexit look very tame. The EU is mostly what we have currently for trying to work together in Europe, if it crumbles, cooperation will be set back for a long time (just as it is between UK and the EU 27 post Brexit) in favour of acrimony, finger pointing and blame + zero sum power games.

It was you who said that having been convicted of a crime was necessary in order to suggest someone had done something improper. Why did you say it if you don't believe it?

You could easily give written fellatio to your heros on here as you are focused on doing without making yourself look incapable of making a valid argument.

I know you can delete your account so that no one who isn't here right now would be aware of all these contradictions you are prone to, but to be honest, that doesn't show you in a great light either.

Eh, Ukraine was a fully functioning democracy before the invasion by Russia, Ireland was divided among feudal chieftains, more often at war with one another, when the English brought unity to the country.

Unity?

There is a lot of social history backing up what Seth Brundle and WrenBoy are saying.

It isn't just a matter of deciding what sounds more plausible - look into what happened and what people at the time said about it if you're interested in the truth.

Anyway we are a "wind energy superpower" now so our time has finally come.

Ireland was the first colony of that Empire and while I believe its population was at one point more comparable to other parts of what became the UK, it was still smaller.

Ireland is no India to "manage", population or size or distance wise anyway that's for sure.

Much nearer to Britain, easier to occupy and settle + exert force on.

So you had a small "colony" that was very close and was under the the thumb + the native language under constant pressure for alot longer. Think by time of the famine the surviving bastions of the language were in the poorer parts of West/South of the country where the pressure to use English hadn't had as much success over previous x hundred years, and of course they got wiped out didn't they (other UK posters have informed me, in past threads to paraphrase, that was because they were dumb for growing just potatoes)?

No more people, no more language, no more problems! But sure it was all rational "choice" and English is just better etc.