Quick Introduction (from Europe)

Just following on from the earlier inteerst that was shown on the position in Ireland with regards to access to abortion services. The following breaking news has just appeared on the RTÉ (Irish public television service) website:

Irish abortion challenge to go to ECHR

Ireland's abortion ban is to be challenged at the European Court of Human Rights.

Three Irishwoman who say their rights were denied by being forced to seek terminations outside the State are taking the case in Strasbourg.

The identities of the women will not be revealed during the case.

However, the three women involved include a woman who ran the risk of a pregnancy developing outside the womb, a woman who had chemotherapy for cancer and a woman who had her children placed in care.
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Just for those unfamiliar with the way that human rights law works in the European Union. All EU citizens have the right to petition the European Court of Human Rights which sits in Strasbourg in France, if they are unable to vindicate their rights under the European Convention on Human Rights in their domestic courts. I guess its a bit similar to the State -v- Federal system in the US, except it's an international court.

These cases arise, in part, becasue of the problem that I wrote about in an earlier post, i.e. the reluctance of the Irish government to write the decisions of the Supreme Court on access to abortion in limited circumstances, into Irish law. If the Court finds in favour of these women, which is likely given a recent similar decision on access to legal abortion in Poland, there will be a shit-storm of protest in Ireland. You'll be able to see the fireworks across the Atlantic!
 
BTW if Fiana Flail and Fine Gael are both centre-right why don't they go in coalition together? Why does Fine Gael always chose to go with labour and other left-wing instead, whenever by that label they really would belong more with Flail? I just really don't understand the Fine Gael party at all.
 
Watermark said:
Well sheesh. The EU could honestly lose a member if it rules positively on that case.
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It would certainly increase the government's problems in finding a way to ratify the Lisbon Treaty that the Irish people rejected in May.

However, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is not an EU institution. The ECHR rules on the "European Convention on Human Rights" which is not an EU treaty but a wider international treaty which exists outside the structures of the EU and which many more European countries outside the EU have signed, like Russia, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland and several Balkan and Caucasan states.

The EU, OTOH, has its own court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) which rules only on EU treaties, most of which deal with economic and institutional issues.

The reason for the complexity is the evolutionary way in which European institutions (inside and outside the EU) have developed. I fear I misled you when I used the analogy of the US system. However, the actual distinctions would confuse most EU citizens as well, hence why you are right to warn of the effect a positive decision at the ECHR would have on Ireland's relationship with the EU. Many Irish citizens, particularly those hostile to the EU project, would view it as being an EU assault on Irish abortion law.
 
Watermark said:
BTW if Fiana Flail and Fine Gael are both centre-right why don't they go in coalition together? Why does Fine Gael always chose to go with labour and other left-wing instead, whenever by that label they really would belong more with Flail? I just really don't understand the Fine Gael party at all.
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The main reason why Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael exist in the first place is because they represent the two different sides that fought each other in the Irish Civil War between 1922-23. That war and its immediate consequences imprinted the party model on Irish politics that has endured to this day and is part of the reason why Left-politics has never broken out of its third place. As we all know there's nothing as vicious as a civil war and nothing as enduring as the enmity such wars produce. That enmity is reproduced in the current structure of Irish politics.

There are no material policy differences at all between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Both parties have almost identical policy positions on all economic and social issues and elections are fought over the issue of who can manage things better! There is a slight difference in the pattern of electoral support that each party receives: Fianna Fáil tends to attract more urban working class support than Fine Gael, who in turn tend to attract more conservative rural support than Fianna Fáil. However, both parties draw support from right across the social classes and the urban/rural divide.

If both parties were to ever go into a grand coalition together that would leave the Left/Progressive factions (Labour, Sinn Féin and the Greens) as the principal opposition. In such circumstances the existing party model would come under, what might turn out to be, unsustainable electoral pressure and could potentially collapse ushering in a more European Left-Right discourse. It is partly the fear of this happening that helps to keep Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael apart.
 
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PES Activist said:
Hi everyone - I hope you don't mind a European intruding on a US politics website, but with all the current interest being shown in EU-US relations I thought it would be good to find a way of entering into a dialogue with people from the US.

I've looked around for a forum that doesn't have the usual crazies, and which appears to be a place for informed debate. This forum looks like it fits the bill!

Just a little about myself. I am active in the Irish Labour Party in Dublin which is a constituent party of the Party of European Socialists (PES) along with the British Labour Party, the French Parti Socialiste and the German Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) along with other socialist, social democratic and labour parties across the European Union.

My career background is in the global telecommunications industry and I have worked with US corporate customers for many years, including spending quite a bit of time in NYC, Washington and New Jersey.

I'm interested in what the changes that are taking place across our shared world mean for the transatlantic relationship between the EU and the US, and am hoping to contribute to the shared understanding that is so vital to a continuing positive partnership between Europeans and Americans.
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The elites in business and government are planning to concentrate all their power into one high tech control grid, which will be able to monitor all transactions and media around the world. They will continue to use currency system and technology to manipulate all world interactions to benefit those at the top of the power pyramid.

Most of us are screwed, and anyone who points out the truth is screwed.

I can't wait to die.

How's your day?
 
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