MADRID

I was in Madrid last week to address a meeting organised on behalf of the Community of Madrid.

The government of the Madrid region  is headed by one of the leading figures in Spanish politics, Esperanza Aguirre. The theme of the conference was Innovation.

Also speaking was Alvaro Uribe, the clear sighted and brave former President of Colombia,  who defeated the  terrorist threat to his country and gave it the  opportunity to grow again.

THE PRECONDITIONS FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH

Both former President Uribe and I spoke about the preconditions for economic growth which include

+ order and security

+ the rule of law

+ easy procedures for setting up a new business

+ labour market rules that do not make it  unduly  risky for an employer to add to his workforce in tough times in the hope of getting new business

+ an educational system that encourages engagement with other countries, and competence in  mathematics and science

I said  that “innovation” is, first and foremost, a state of mind.

Even if one invests heavily in technology, but does not have a constant willingness to try to new ways of doing things, one will not innovate and  succeed economically.

The planned economies failed, not because they did not invest enough, but because their bureaucratic procedures failed to encourage an innovative state of mind.

YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT

Like Ireland, Spain faces a huge unemployment problem. The youth unemployment level in Spain is  48%. This is higher than Greece, where the rate is 47%. In Estonia the rate is 32%, in Portugal 30%, and in Ireland it is 28%.

In Austria and the Netherlands, youth unemployment is only 8%, and in Germany it is 9%.

This  explains why the latter group of countries have a totally different attitude to the European economic crisis.

MALE UNEMPLOYMENT.........AN  ESPECIALLY IRISH PROBLEM

In Ireland’s case, unemployment is twice as high among males as among females.  This is so nowhere else in Europe, and is a phenomenon that is being totally ignored.

This disproportionate level of male unemployment, is at least as important a topic  in gender discrimination as the proportion of women on boards of directors.

DISMANTLING FRANCO’ S LEGACY....MAKING IT LESS RISKY TO EMPLOY MORE PEOPLE

In Spain, as in Ireland, efforts are being made by the new Government of Mariano Rajoy, to open up the labour market to young people.

Spanish Employers are reluctant to take on extra employees, in the hope of winning extra business, because existing Spanish law tells them they must keep the extra employees on,  whether they retain the extra business or not. 

Spain has a very rigid and heavily regulated labour market. Wage rates are set centrally, and must be paid regardless of the condition of the firm. The cost of making a person redundant is very high too. These rules were made in the  1940s, in accordance with corporatist thinking,  by General Franco, and were not changed when Spain became a democracy.

 Ironically, the big defenders today of Franco’s legacy in labour law today are left wing  trade unions. Similarly rigid wage setting mechanisms, that discourage the creation of new jobs in tough times, exist in a limited number of trades in Ireland too, and in other European countries but nowhere is the system as rigid as that in Spain.

CAN FOOD SUPPLEMENTS CONTAIN BANNED SUBSTANCES?

WHO IS ENTITLED TO USE FOREIGN DECODERS TO PICK UP GAMES BROADCASTS?

I chaired a meeting of the European Sports Platform in Brussels last week.

Doping in sport was one of the topics we covered. Top athletes are all subject to regular, without notice, dope tests which carry severe penalties. They are subject to strict liability, so that if a trace of a banned substance is found the penalties are automatic. Concern has arisen that nutritional supplements could contain trace elements of banned supplement which an athlete might take in complete ignorance. The possibility of EU action to deal with this problem, especially as regards sales over the internet from one country to another, was raised. This topic will be very topical during this Olympic year

We also discussed the Murphy judgement of the European Court of Justice  which concerned the use of decoders from one EU country  to  pick up broadcasts from another EU country at a lesser fee than might be charged  at home. While the Court said such decoders were acceptable for private use, it was not acceptable to use them to broadcast of games in a public house.  This issue has  implications for the funding of sport, because  sports organisations  depend for a large part of their income on broadcasting revenues.

We also had a presentation on the work of the European Deaf Sports Federation. People with hearing difficulties, who rely on sign language for communication,  have special difficulties in team sports and the  Federation, founded as far back as 1924, is doing good work to overcome  these difficulties.

THE MEATH WAR DEAD.....REMEMBERED AT LAST

I attended the launch recently in Trim Co Meath by the Taoiseach, Enda Kenny of a book by local historian Noel French containing short biographies of over 500 Meath men who died in the 1914 - 1918 War.
 About five times that number of Meath people would have joined the forces , put their lives at risk, suffered greatly, but survived.
A similar story could be told about all 32 counties of Ireland, and it will be,   because Noel French’s book is part of a series.
The men who served in the Great War did so for a variety of motives.
Some undoubtedly joined for economic motives because of lack of employment, or poor employment, at home.
Others joined for adventure, and probably assumed the war would not last long.
Yet others, a  minority, would have done so mainly out of loyalty to the United Kingdom.
All were volunteers
 An important number would have done so out of rational political conviction, and out of a sense of how small nations, like Ireland itself, should and should not, be treated, and  in answer to a call to do so on that basis, from the Leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, John Redmond  .
 They joined the forces because they wanted to protect the rights of small countries, like Belgium, which had just been invaded in an entirely unprovoked way by Imperial Germany.
 Imperial Germany believed that going through Belgium was the best way to attack France. But the attack on France was itself unprovoked and pre emptive, because Germany feared an attack by France in response to Germany’s support for the Austro Hungarian Empire, in its completely unnecessary war on another small country, Serbia.
This was the background to John Redmond’s call on Irishmen to join the armed forces, to which so many Meath men responded.
 It is also the background against which the wisdom of the passage in the Easter Week 1916 Proclamation, which refers to Proclamation’s framers’  “gallant allies in Europe”, should be judged. These “gallant allies” were Imperial Germany, the Austro Hungarian Empire, and the Ottoman Empire.  “Neutrality” was not part of Irish Republican thinking in 1916.
Because this 1916 ideology became so prevalent in Ireland until very recent times, the Irish people who fought in the Great War were made to feel outsiders in their own country for over two generations.
 It is only now, thanks to novelists like Sebastian Barry and historians like Noel French , that the memory of their sacrifice is being reclaimed, and their subsequent rejection by politically correct ideology remedied.
Reading Noel French’s book, I came across so many familiar names of Meath families I know, who lost a loved one. My own then small rural parish of Dunboyne, lost  14 men in the trenches, one of whose  relatives is now  a  local member of Meath County Council.
The Meath War Dead is published by the History Press Ireland of 119 Lower Baggot Street Dublin 2