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The European Union’s dilemma 125 7 The European Union’s dilemma: towards a union or not? From its humble beginnings, [the Roman Empire] has grown so much that it is now suffering under its own size. (Titus Livius)1 Summary In March 1999 the European Commission, the European Union’s executive branch, resigned under accusations of fraud, nepotism and mismanagement, leading to intensive soul-searching as to what could be the right form of management for the EU. How could the democratic aspects of the emerging entity be enhanced? How could democracy be improved
This book is about the language of the European Union’s response to the threat of terrorism: the ‘fight against terrorism’. Since its re-emergence in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the ‘fight against terrorism’ has come to represent a priority area of action for the European Union (EU). Drawing on interpretive approaches to International Relations, the author outlines a discourse theory of identity and counter-terrorism policy in order to explore the ways in which the EU’s counter-terrorism discourse has been constructed and the ways in which it functions. Importantly, the author shows how the ‘fight against terrorism’ structures the EU response to terrorism through the prism of identity, drawing our attention to the various ‘others’ that have come to form the target of EU counter-terrorism policy. Through an extensive analysis of the wider societal impact of the EU’s ‘fight against terrorism’ discourse, the author reveals the various ways in which EU counter-terrorism policy is contributing to the ‘securitisation’ of social and political life within Europe.
4 The European Union: a force for peace in the world The Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, TD Introduction Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s lecture in March 2004, on ‘The European Union: a force for peace in the world’, came at a critical juncture in the institution’s history; and in the Northern Ireland peace process. Importantly, he was speaking in his capacity as President of the European Council, a position held by Ireland, as it did by rotation amongst member states, from 1 January until 30 June that year. By then, he had intimate and extensive experience of government at
3 The trade union movement While she did certainly not desist from socialist or suffrage politics, Wilkinson’s principal preoccupation during the First World War was trade unionism.1 Her long association with the shop workers’ union began with a job application. The Co-operative Employé’s May 1915 issue advertised a women’s organiser’s post at £2 5s per week, to reside in Manchester with responsibilities including ‘correspondence, the organisation of trade union movements for women, canvassing for new members, platform speaking’.2 On 18 July 1915, the AUCE
9780719081033_2_C03.qxd 1/20/10 9:06 Page 47 3 Skills and trade unions It is an undoubted fact that my trade is the Aristocrat of trades in general, having as its Patron, one Noah, of Biblical fame, whose masterpiece, the Ark was a triumph of the Shipwright’s art, and independent of the aid of all the other trades.1 Britain’s skilled craftsmen were always vying with each other for prime status through such references to mythical and Biblical origins, and there is no doubt that the shipwrights were indeed an ancient and highly skilled group. Each of them had
57 4 Power in a union But the press are more or less the sleuth hounds who are all the time looking for some advance information. They want to know everything in advance, whether it is or is not in the public interest … Their interest is to get information of one kind or another, and the more sensational it is, and the more premature it is, the better from their point of view … They hear that something is going on. They add more than two and two –they add two and two and make five of it very often.1 — Éamon de Valera on journalists, 1939 In 1926, the NUJ
In 1869, Parliament disestablished the Church of Ireland, dissolving what Benjamin Disraeli called the ‘sacred union’ of church and state in Ireland. Disestablishment involved fundamental issues – the identity and purpose of the established church, the religious nature of the state, the morality of state appropriation of church property for secular uses, and the union of Ireland and Britain – and debate was carried on at a high intellectual level. With disestablishment, the Church of Ireland lost much of its property, but it recovered, now as an independent Episcopal church with a renewed mission. The idea of the United Kingdom as a semi-confessional Protestant state, however, was dealt a serious blow.
3303 Devolution 31/3/09 08:43 Page 219 10 Ever looser union As a theoretical proposition the United Kingdom would probably win few converts because it seems such a fragile concoction. Imagine the reaction to a political scientist who proposed to create a country from the following design: three and a half nations, multiple religions, a number of languages, two separate legal systems and the whole thing ruled by a highly centralised government in the city in the south of the largest nation. (Morgan and Mungham 2000: 21) Devolution does not cede ultimate
policy-makers and shaped the perceptions of those groups impacted by industrial relations reform. If the granular archival work in this book provides the specifics of the governing process, this chapter points to the most pertinent areas for examination. The first ‘theme’ details the historical development of the British system of industrial relations, focusing on the origins of trade union distrust of judges and the courts. It traces how the hard-won immunities protecting trade unionists from legal action in the criminal or civil courts underpinned
3 Protecting the Union: the American Civil War, 1861–5 In March 1861 among the immediate tasks facing Republican President Abraham Lincoln was to keep the United States together. This he failed to do and on 12 April when the southern states attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina and then seceded from the Union, civil war became inevitable. There were many reasons for the conflict but the most significant was the future status of the institution of slavery. The four-year war caused political, economic, social and military upheaval, the effects of which would be