Clare Daly: MEPs effectively buying seats in corrupt European Parliament
Activist and former MEP Clare Daly says the European Union is corrupt – and that candidates are effectively buying seats in the European Parliament.
Activist and former MEP Clare Daly says the European Union is corrupt – and that candidates are effectively buying seats in the European Parliament.
Daly, in an episode of The Ditch: Party Line podcast published tomorrow, spoke about EU countries that use a different voting system to Ireland.
Many EU countries elect MEPs through party lists, with seats typically going to those decided by party leaders.
Daly described how the list system – under which voters choose a political party rather than an individual – has been exploited by candidates paying for positions.
“We know of people in countries who had told us that they paid to go higher up on the list because the more votes that party gets, the more seats they get,” she said.
“So we know of people who basically said, well, if you put me up on this list, I'll give you a couple of grand every month. And they were literally paying every month – so that will tell you what other money they were getting. I’d call that corruption,” she said.
Voters, Daly said, might think they are voting for a party leader like Mary Lou McDonald, while having no say over who actually takes seats.
“It's certainly total subservience to the interests of European capital,” she said.
Daly also criticised EU's rapidly increasing defence spending, describing it as a symptom of the bankruptcy of European politics. With the continent deindustrialised – partly, she said, through self-sanctions imposed in response to the war in Ukraine – defence expenditure has become the only significant source of EU funding.
“The only money there supposedly is for defence and ‘competitiveness,’” she said, speaking with Party Line co-hosts Harry Browne and Niamh Ní Bhriain, as well as Ditch editor Eoghan McNeill. “It is illegal for the budget to spend money directly on defence. And yet we have a defence commissioner. How could that be?” she said.
The way around it, she said, is through trade – with the defence industry advising European policymakers. “So it’s business – and it’s business led by the (defence) industry,” she said.
Ireland's participation in the European Competitiveness Fund, which Daly said steals resources from other areas is unsurprising. "This is the trajectory they've been on for many years now."
Listen to the full episode of The Ditch: Party Line tomorrow – where you get your podcasts.
