French Presidential elections

[Pat Mustard]

Do you know how many people the EU employs? 24,500 directly and a further 9,000 on secondment. That is roughly comparable to the Irish civil service (which doesn't include employees of the HSE, An Garda Siochana, the Permanent Defence Forces, any of the semi-state companies or local authorities). Given the amount of work being done by EU institurions and bodies there is remarkably little bloat most of which is found in the CAP (and a large chunk of that is set to disappear in the next two years when the UK with its massive payments to large landowners exits).

The EU is, when you look at it, one of the most efficient govermental bodies around (and a far, far better thing than any private company [outside of small enetrprises] that I've ever looked at in terms of effectiveness).

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Le Pen has never done well from terrorist attacks, because people begin to realise, a) the innefectiveness of her policies vis a vis terrorism, b) the sheer inability to implement even 10% of what she proposes, and c) the fact that the woman is herself a terrorist.

EDIT:

dammit, where'd my post go ?

The post monster et it.

PS where'd you get the article from? I'm betting somewhere like the Daily Heil or the Torygraph who've been publishing lies about the EU for years.

The thing is at the very highest estimations the EU civil service is comparable to the Irish one (and does a lot more) and about 1/10 that of the UK civil service.

Edit:it's from a blog written by a hard right young Thatcherite who criticises the EU constantly for not being "open" yet refuses to tell anybody who's paying him. I wouldn't trust that blogger as far as I could throw him.