Wednesday, January 18, 2006
EU attacks Ireland over Sellafield
Sovereign Ireland's dead and gone,It's with McCreevy and the EU brigade.
This story makes my blood boil. So much for Irish sovereignty!
A European Court judge today said that Ireland had breached EU rules in its long-running dispute with the UK over the Sellafield nuclear plant.
The Government launched legal action at the United Nations in 2001 over marine pollution from the site, on the Irish Sea coast in Cumbria.
But an Advocate-General at the European Court of Justice backed the European Commission's case that Ireland should have tried to settle its dispute under EU jurisdiction.
It is the first legal action involving an EU rule which obliges the member states not to take a dispute concerning EU law to "any other means of settlement".
The conflict over Sellafield, argued the Commission, was a matter which could and should be tackled with the EU.
"As environmental protection constitutes an area of shared competence in EU law, Community institutions should be given precedence as the forum for dispute resolution," said a Commission submission to the court.
Today's "opinion" is not a final verdict, which will be delivered later this year by the full court.
But in a majority of cases, the final result reflects the views of the Advocate-General, who today recommended that Ireland pays the costs of the case.
Lawyers for the Irish government maintained Dublin was right to turn to the UN, because the case against the UK concerned the alleged flouting by the Sellafield plant's operators of marine environmental protection obligations under the UN Tribunal on the Law of the Sea.
The Tribunal itself concluded that the dispute was solely based on UN requirements, even recommending "provisional measures" to resolve the problem, including further exchanges of information between the UK and Ireland, the monitoring of potential risks for the Irish Sea and pollution prevention measures.
But Advocate General Miguel Poiares Maduro said today there were remedies for such cases under EU law, and Ireland should not have asked the UN body to interpret EU directives and the UK's obligations under them.
Furthermore, said the Advocate General, Ireland had breached its "duty of cooperation" under EU law: "By instituting UN dispute settlement proceedings against the UK concerning the Sellafield Mox Plant, without prior consultation with the Commission, Ireland has failed to fulfil its Treaty obligations."
In cases where even part of a dispute between EU member states was governed by EC law, they had to be dealt with in the European Court of Justice: "Where the case raises issues of Community law, member states must settle their differences within the Community."
Have you ever heard such ridiculous nonsense in all your life? We didn't use their precious poxy court so now we are in the doghouse? What kind of farcical bullshit is this? We really need to get out of this hellhole that is the European Union. They ought to rename it the European Dictatorship.
These Nazis for the new millenium are now going to make Ireland pay for the costs of the case as well?
What the hell happened to Irish sovereignty? Watch and observe how the Irish clowns who runs this country bend over like nice little lackies for their EU overlords in Brussels over these matters.
It makes me sick.
We ought to tell the EU and their corrupt and contaminated courts to shove their laws and rulings up their arses!
Are we our own country still or what? Can you imagine if the EU Constitution gets the go ahead? We will be utterly paralyzed in a European Superstate then and sovereignty will be but a memory when they walk all over us.
Let's get the hell out of this evil 'Union' before it's too late!
# posted by United Irelander @ 4:26 PM 
© 2008 United Irelander.
