How the EU helped shape my Politics

I am a rare one, I mean among my peers, that not only am I interested in politics but I am actively involved in politics. The EU and European Politics has played a large role in this, especially in me becoming aware of politics, both nationally in Ireland and in the EU of 15 member states as it was then.

I remember clearly being in my Grandmothers in about 1995-1996, I was about 9 or 10, and we were watching the news. There was a report on the end of a European Council meeting and my Nan (Irish colloquialism for Grandmother) commented on the filming of the family picture at the end of the summit “There’s our fella in the middle of them”. That had me immediately asking “who is our fella”. I was told it was our Taoiseach John Bruton (He is currently the EU Ambassador to the USA).  That started me off on Irish politics and from then on I was always good at naming the Minister for Education. An ordinary question about who is someone may have sparked a passion.

My next interaction with politics again came with involvement of the EU. It was the Nice Treaty debate in 2001. My mother brought home a fairly thick book on the treaty from the library for me and I read it with gusto and I hated it. That’s right, I did not like the Nice Treaty (still don’t, I prefer Lisbon) and asked my parents to consider voting no, I don’t know if they did or didn’t but my interest in it helped me learn about referendums. The following year we voted in Ireland on the same treaty, I was still against it, but this time it passed.

In 2004 I started a degree in University College Cork and I joined the university’s branch of Young Fine Gael. I got involved in the running of the branch and then that’s where the EU again arose in my political beginnings. We needed someone to second a motion at the YFG National Conference calling for Turkey not to be allowed join the EU. This had been a major issue in the European Elections of that year (which I hadn’t voted in as I had my Leaving Cert to concentrate on) and Europe was still divided on it. I said I would do it. So my first political speech was arguing against Turkey joining the EU. After I spoke, an MEP spoke, that MEP was Simon Coveney who represented Ireland South until he quit Europe to return to national politics. He argued against the motion. The motioned failed, but had me hooked.

Later in that year I visited the European Institutions with my Degree Course and fell in complete and utter love with European Politics. We learned so much over there and I have been hooked since!

This post was inspired by @antgalvin at a Cork OpenCoffee Club so a thanks to him for the inspiration!

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