International

By Lorna Gold. It was the vision of Garret FitzGerald, as Minister for Foreign Affairs, which led to the establishment of an official Irish aid programme for Africa and the developing world 40 years ago, in the early years of our membership of the EEC. For a generation it generally increased – until this recession. […]

By Michael Smith. Newly elected Syriza has told voters it will end the era of austerity in Greece (and beyond). It has pledged to stop what its 40-year-old leader, Alexis Tsipras, has called the “fiscal waterboarding” policies that have turned Greece into a debt colony. It is the first time in more than 40 years […]

New commission has learnt nothing from manifest anger in recent elections. By Lynn Boylan So it’s business as usual at the European Commission. At best. Anyone hoping that the European elections would change the eurobureaucrats will be deeply disappointed. Last month Jean-Claude Juncker, the new EU Commission President, having vowed contrition after his role in […]

By Anthony Coughlan. The EU establishes a post-war arena where European Nation State interests continue to work themselves out. Take Germany for instance. That great realist Germany’s own Otto Von Bismarck once said:  “I have always found the word ‘Europe’ on the lips of those powers that wanted something from others which they dared not […]

By Niall Crowley. Sandro Gozi, Secretary of State for European Policies in Italy, caught the spirit of it. On behalf of the Italian Presidency of the European Council he spoke of a lost decade where the main reason for establishing the European Union: the advancing of fundamental values such as equality and human rights, was […]

Pressure intensifies on Irish Aid to engage the private sector more pro-actively.

Journalism gets used to the idea that principle can be dangerous.