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Getting shirty in Brussels
Sunday, December 07, 2008 Edited by Pat Leahy
Well, Le Biff and the lads are off to the Euro summit on Thursday to discuss the future of the Lisbon Treaty.

Oh, and also the minor matters of the collapse of the world economy and the threat of global catastrophe from climate change, if they get time after Le Biff briefs them on what in the name of Jaze he’s going to do about Lisbon.

Those lucky officials tasked with managing the personal needs of the leaders of Europe at these loya jirgas categorise summits by the numbers of fresh shirts that their chaps will need. A normal summit would be a ‘two-shirt summit’. One with a very heavy agenda, such as this week’s, could become a ‘three-shirt summit’. However, top sources last week speculated that it could even turn into an ‘four-shirter’. Holy God!

Of course, some leaders have, ahem, more pressing laundry needs than others. ‘‘I suppose it depends on how much your leader sweats,” speculated one official, very much off the record. Also, you’d have thought, it would depend on whether the other leaders have buttered their bread rolls before they throw them at Cowen.

* The Party of European Socialists has - somewhat prematurely - you might think, issued its manifesto for next year’s eagerly awaited elections to the European Parliament.

So eagerly are the elections customarily awaited that a whopping 45 per cent of European citizens chose to vote in them. But never mind. Fresh from the 1983 Labour Party conference last weekend, the Labour leader Eamon Gilmore co-launched the manifesto in Madrid amid much talk of the Great Socialist Leap Forward.

Oddly, Gilmore’s press release failed to mention one of the prominent early planks of the manifesto: ‘‘The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, subject to ratification by all EU member states, would make Europe better able to tackle common challenges democratically, transparently and effectively.”

An oversight, perhaps.

* At last, a speck of light for Le Biff, a morsel of good news for him amid the avalanche of crap in recent weeks. Finian McGrath, the independent TD who jumped ship a few weeks ago, could perhaps be persuaded to return to the fold.

Possibly encouraged by the emollient noises from Cuba towards president-elect Obama, after much sitting in quiet contemplation under the Che poster in his bedsit, Finian now believes that, if the national interest demands it, he could possibly support the government once again.

‘‘Oh, I’m not saying I will, but I’m not closing the door completely,” the moustachioed hombre tells AOB’s man in Leinster House. ‘‘I have to think of, eh, all the economic stuff.”

By which we feel sure he means the state’s finances, rather than his own.

This could be the start of the recovery. We could call it the Great Socialist Leap Forward.

* Master McGrath also points out that, with the independents at 8 per cent in the most recent Sunday Business Post tracking poll, this must mean that he’s at around ‘‘16 or 17 per cent’’ in his own constituency.

He may be getting complacent - he didn’t even ask us to put in a picture of him. But here’s one anyway.

* Still with matters European, nominations are now being accepted for ‘Worst EU Lobbying’ award 2008. According to the organisers, the gong ‘‘will be awarded to the lobbyist company or lobby group that in 2008 has employed the most deceptive, misleading, or otherwise problematic lobbying tactics in its attempts to influence EU decision-making’’.

Forgive us, but this sounds like the Best Lobbying Award. Anyway, all on worstlobby.eu. Of course, all lobbying firms and their clients are included on the EU’s register of lobbyists, which is available for public scrutiny.

Er, except the ones that don’t choose to be, as it’s a voluntary register. Very effective, no doubt.

* Any Aer Lingus brothers who want to interrogate the Mighty Micker O’Leary in person may do so at the Leviathan ‘political cabaret’ (whatever that is),which takes place next Wednesday evening at the Button Factory, Temple Bar, Dublin 2. The topic this month is Moral Money: The Future of Capitalism.

These are peculiar times. Micker O’Leary is cosying up to the trade unions - what next? Micker’s Great Socialist Leap Forward?

Meanwhile, the unions are wailing about the need for competition. Could it possibly be that they are both just out for themselves?

* Tomorrow also sees an appearance by Ireland’s European Commissioner, one Charles McCreevy, at a lunch hosted by something called the Association of European Journalists.

They couldn’t get Declan Ganley, apparently.

McCreevy will address the august body on the Irish and international economic situation, and offer some of his customarily frank insights. In other words, the usual display of pyrotechnics is expected.

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