Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has discussed the last European Council meeting with the Taoiseach in the D\u00e1il and raised the issues of climate change, structural voting changes due to the Lisbon Treaty, and Europe\u2019s response to Ebola.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last European Council extensively discussed the EU\u2019s Climate and Energy Policy Framework, but they showed a severe lack of ambition.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile the Council committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 40% by 2030, this is only a first step, and sadly it agreed to water down energy efficiency and renewables targets to 27%, by 2030, neither of which are binding at a national level.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlso worrying was the fact that a special “flexibility clause” was added to the final text, which allows the Council to return and edit the targets after the UN climate summit in Paris in December 2015.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Crowe continued:<\/p>\n
\u201cNovember 1st<\/sup> also marked the entrance of new voting rules into the Council, which were brought in under provisions of the Lisbon Treaty. The new voting system in the Council, where key decisions are made, are now be on a straight population basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis means that Ireland\u2019s voting weight has reduced from 2% to 0.8%, while Germany\u2019s has doubled from 8% to 16%. France, Italy and Britain have also moved from their 8% each to 12%.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis means that power has shifted away from small and medium sized states to the bigger elites.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Sinn F\u00e9in, and many others, called for a no vote in the Lisbon Treaty and pointing out that it would increase the democratic deficit and reduce Ireland\u2019s influence and voting powers, Labour, Fine Gael, and Fianna F\u00e1il, were promising jobs. We have yet to see the promised jobs, and now see a reduction in our voting power. Is it any wonder that the Government neglected to mark this occasion?<\/p>\n
\u201cI also raised my legitimate concerns over Ebola and how it is hugely impacting on the economic and agricultural life of the affected countries. More needs to be done by the European Union to tackle the increased food insecurity, which could lead to famine, in the Ebola effected countries.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, Se\u00e1n Crowe TD, has discussed the last European Council meeting with the Taoiseach in the D\u00e1il and raised the issues of climate change, structural voting changes due to the Lisbon Treaty, and Europe\u2019s response to Ebola. Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said: \u201cThe last European Council extensively discussed the EU\u2019s Climate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[126,53,19,31,138],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ebola","category-environment","category-eu","category-european-council","category-lisbon-treaty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1922"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1923,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1922\/revisions\/1923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}