{"id":297304,"date":"2026-02-14T06:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T06:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/297304\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T06:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T06:41:08","slug":"will-ireland-stand-up-against-eus-race-to-the-bottom-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/297304\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Ireland stand up against EU\u2019s race to the bottom? \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Sir, \u2013 It was heartening to note from Jack Power\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/europe\/2026\/02\/12\/mario-draghi-is-not-going-to-save-europe\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/world\/europe\/2026\/02\/12\/mario-draghi-is-not-going-to-save-europe\/\" target=\"_blank\">recent article<\/a> (\u201cMario Draghi is not going to save Europe\u201d, February 12th, 2026) that some in the Irish media are waking up to the reality of what is going on in Brussels: the EU is rapidly progressing the most significant race to the bottom on standards that will include reducing protections against toxic chemicals, deforestation, labour exploitation and <a href=\"https:\/\/corporateeurope.org\/en\/deregulation-watch\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/corporateeurope.org\/en\/deregulation-watch\">human rights abuses<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The fuel in the tank for the past 18 months has been the holy scripture known as the Draghi report. But as the article says: \u201cDraghi isn\u2019t going to save Europe. Cutting back chunks of the union\u2019s landmark laws and regulations won\u2019t do the job either.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">As we in Tr\u00f3caire and our allies have long argued, this mania for \u201ccutting red tape\u201d causes real harms, peeling away key rights and protections from people in Europe and around the world, including some of the poorest and most fragile countries in the world. The result is to make us all more vulnerable to predatory corporate profit-making.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">As EU leaders gather in a 16th-century castle in the Belgian countryside to discuss the future of EU \u201ccompetitiveness\u201d, it is time for the Irish Government to state clearly if it stands for citizens\u2019 rights or corporate profits. \u2013 Yours, etc,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">CHRIS O\u2019CONNELL,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Policy and advocacy adviser,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Tr\u00f3caire,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Maynooth,<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Co Kildare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sir, \u2013 It was heartening to note from Jack Power\u2019s recent article (\u201cMario Draghi is not going to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2244,61,60,8872,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-297304","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-mario-draghi","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297304\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}