Strasbourg, Tuesday 23 November 2010
Press Statement: Joe Higgins MEP (Socialist Party) · Commissioner Olli Rehn’s meeting with Irish MEPs
· Joe Higgins walks out of talks over Rehn’s insistence on the
confidentiality of discussion Socialist Party MEP, Joe Higgins, refused to participate in a meeting
between Irish MEPs and the Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner
Olli Rehn. MEP Higgins left the meeting after Mr Rehn stated he would
only share essential information if all the MEPs agreed not to
disclose the contents. Joe Higgins said after leaving the meeting “After a week in which the Irish people were persistently misled and
lied to it was outrageous to suggest that elected representatives
could not share with those who elected them what Commissioner Rehn had
to say “As far as I am concerned commissioner Rehn and the IMF are acting as
agents for the predatory international banks and the speculators who
gambled billions in private deals with property developers and bankers
in Ireland and now want the Irish working class to pay for these
gambles which went wrong. “I was therefore not going to participate in any secret discussion
behind the backs of working people and the unemployed. “It is essential that there is a major mobilisation of people power
and worker power to stop the disastrous austerity programme beginning
next Saturday at the National Protest organised by ICTU.”
Press Statement: Joe Higgins MEP (Socialist Party) · Commissioner Olli Rehn’s meeting with Irish MEPs
· Joe Higgins walks out of talks over Rehn’s insistence on the
confidentiality of discussion Socialist Party MEP, Joe Higgins, refused to participate in a meeting
between Irish MEPs and the Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner
Olli Rehn. MEP Higgins left the meeting after Mr Rehn stated he would
only share essential information if all the MEPs agreed not to
disclose the contents. Joe Higgins said after leaving the meeting “After a week in which the Irish people were persistently misled and
lied to it was outrageous to suggest that elected representatives
could not share with those who elected them what Commissioner Rehn had
to say “As far as I am concerned commissioner Rehn and the IMF are acting as
agents for the predatory international banks and the speculators who
gambled billions in private deals with property developers and bankers
in Ireland and now want the Irish working class to pay for these
gambles which went wrong. “I was therefore not going to participate in any secret discussion
behind the backs of working people and the unemployed. “It is essential that there is a major mobilisation of people power
and worker power to stop the disastrous austerity programme beginning
next Saturday at the National Protest organised by ICTU.”