Irish Central bank Governor Patrick Honohan says he expects the Irish Government to accept a "very substantial loan"

Comments

[Denis Cooper]

And what about the "no bailout" clauses which were deliberately inserted into the original Maastricht Treaty to prevent anything like this ever happening, as we were repeatedly reassured at the time, and which have since been carried over as Articles 123 - 125 TFEU in the present treaties?

Treaties which here on the EU's EUR-Lex website:

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/droit_communautaire/droit_communautaire.htm

are said to "constitute the European Union’s ‘primary legislation’, which is comparable to constitutional law at national level.", in a European Union which according to this:

http://europa.eu/abc/treaties/index_en.htm

is "based on the rule of law", so that "everything that it does is derived from treaties".

[Victor Southern]

Denis - you are probably right but the EU is never going to be bound by pettifogging regulations. There will be an elaborate trick with a black curtain, mirrors, wires and smoke. The admiring audience will applaud.

[Denis Cooper]

It's not "pettifogging regulations", Victor; it's a solemn Treaty concluded between High Contracting Parties; it's that "European law" which our Parliament has agreed we must always obey in every particular, and to which our Parliament has agreed to accord primacy over any conflicting national law which it may itself inadvertently pass; and it's a special subset of that "international law" which we're constantly told we must observe.

In this case, Parliament passed an Act to approve the Maastricht Treaty on European Union as it stood, including the much-emphasised "no bailout" clauses, and Parliament has never agreed that those clauses should no longer apply and therefore they remain part of our national constitutional law, which is being broken by ministers.

[Victor Southern]

Denis - it is only the UK who pays any attention to these arcane matters. France, Germany and the others do as they please.

[Denis Cooper]

Maybe, but it's our national constitution which is being undermined when our ministers break the law passed by our Parliament. If they want to connive at breaking the EU treaties as approved by Act of Parliament then they should go back to Parliament and get explicit authorisation to do that, otherwise they're returning us to the situation before the Glorious Revolution and the Bill of Rights 1688.

[Judy]

And how right he was pity he didn't tell us so we could have voiced an opinion while it was going on