Sir, – As one who has always admired Vincent Browne’s ability to stand up to the powers that be, I have to disagree with the conclusions he reaches about the EU (Opinion, June 29th).
To describe the EU as “a venture that is inherently contemptuous of ‘ordinary’ citizens of the union” is a blatant contradiction of the facts.
The EU is a union of 27 countries the governments of which are elected by the democratic votes of their citizens. The treaties which control the operation of the EU were negotiated by the democratically elected government of each country.
Being a human institution, the EU has its faults and failings. Contrary to Mr Browne’s assertions, however, the ordinary citizens of the union have much superior lifestyles and life expectations than that which obtained before the EU was founded. Then tyrannical governments deprived ordinary citizens of their rights and laid waste large areas of the continent.
Reducing Ireland’s role in the EU to mere “supplicants, pleading for favours via the Common Agriculture Policy, structural funds, regional policy”, as Mr Browne has done, is a travesty.
Our membership of the EU gives our entrepreneurs access to a market of nearly 500 million people. It has also widened our horizons in the social, cultural, legal and political fields beyond anything that could be imagined in the early years of this State.
Lastly, scapegoating the EU for the failure of our own elites in politics, banks and elsewhere to manage the affairs of this 90-year old democracy, as Mr Browne is doing, is pathetic. – Yours, etc,