EUROPEAN COMMISSION president José Manuel Barroso was “out of touch with reality on the ground”, Sinn Féin spokeswoman on EU Affairs Senator Kathryn Reilly has said.
Responding to Mr Barroso’s call for a European federation of nation states, Senator Reilly said this was a “pipe dream”.
“Sinn Féin has consistently warned that a federal Europe is the ultimate goal of those at the helm of the EU project. However we were always dismissed as scaremongers,” she said.
“This shows how out of touch with the reality on the ground he, and the commission, must be. Citizens across the EU, especially young people, are struggling with sky-high levels of unemployment and underemployment,” Senator Reilly said.
“ I can assure President Barroso that federalist pipe dreams are not keeping them awake at night.”
Socialist Party MEP Paul Murphy said Mr Barroso’s speech “revealed clearly a vision of a neo-liberal, militarised, austerity union”.
“His vision of political union is explicitly one of a militarised Europe. He called for ‘a Europe that is capable of deploying military missions’ and the need to ‘begin truly collective defence planning’, Mr Murphy said.
Ireland North West MEP for Fine Gael Jim Higgins said: “Mr Barroso said ‘we are in a defining moment’.
“I agree with his view that we should embrace our interdependence and become stronger in unity in order to protect our values.”
