Belgium this afternoon.
Michael Pidgeon writes:
“Taken outside the European Parliament by Friends of the Earth Europe. Pretty much every protest you go to with an Irish person – no matter what the cause – the classic Father Ted protest signs will inevitably show up. This protest is against Miguel Arias Cañete‘s appointment as EU Climate and Energy Commissioner. Up until his nomination, he was chairman of two oil companies, so it’s pretty safe to say he’s something of a dodgy pick for the job. The petition against him has nearly 300,000 signatures already….”
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And here’s the link to send a quick email to the Irish MEPs that will be quizing Cañete at this evening’s hearings http://bit.ly/notocañete. We can’t have an oil man in charge of Europe’s climate policy!
In the spirit of that one ballbag we all know who can’t leave out the Father Ted or Simpsons quotes:
“No! Top jobs for sexists!”
No top! Jobs for sexists.
Not surprising that people living in brussels, would write some humorless quotes like that with their beige lives and trying to be gas 20 years after a poor sitcom aired
Our lives are more taupe than beige, but thanks all the same.
“No Fossil Fuels in our Democracy”
Er, was she not paying attention when Europe’s Overlord was ‘elected’ during the summer?
Fine, chicken, when we have a democracy in Brussels we’ll scrap the fossil fuels, run along now.
Vague patronising sexism aside, actually the EU Commission President was elected, for the first time. Each party group nominated a candidate, and the biggest party’s candidate got the job, with a (soon to be) majority in the European Parliament. Roughly comparable (in theory, if not in practice) to the appointment of a Taoiseach, who also isn’t directly elected to his/her post.
I think the issue here is less democracy, and more shitty politicians.
forgive me for the naivete but isn’t someone on the board of two oil companies a good pick for something called energy commissioner? How’s competency in a field bad?
It’s a climate and energy commissioner role. They used to be separate, but now they’re being merged under one guy. The point is more that he’s so steeped in oil companies (and his family still have huge financial stakes in oil) that he won’t even give a fair shake to climate work, never mind actually leading Europe away from fossil fuel dependence.
Why is there a clash of interest like ?
It’s looking good for our Phil then?
Between this guy, the Data Commissioner nominee who thinks the recent celebrity nude picture hack was ‘their own fault’, and ‘our Phil’, it looks like another bunch of incompetents.