Michael D Higgins ‘very worried about the future of Europe’

President Michael D Higgins has strongly criticised the European Union, warning that imposition of the EU's fiscal rules could remove decision-making powers from elected governments.

In an interview with The Irish Times today, the President says he is "very worried about the future of Europe" adding he fears "that it's ditching some of its better achievements, it's losing some of its better thought because it isn't willing to engage".

His comments come as European leaders met yesterday in Bratislava for discussions on the future of the EU after the British decision to leave.

Mr Higgins is especially critical of a technocratic imposition of the European fiscal rules, which govern the budgetary choices of euro zone members. “They’ve argued that matters are so complicated they can’t be left to citizens. You could end up almost at the European level with a kind of a fiscal council that removes all conscious decision-making from the people,” he says.

German economics

The President also strongly criticises the imposition of austerity programmes intended to make EU members conform to German economic norms. “The 27 remaining states in the European Union can’t all be like

Germany

. It would actually be a contradiction if they were,” he says.

Mr Higgins also criticised the European Central Bank.

"I remember saying about the European Central Bank, that there was no central bank in the history of central banks that had ever had any impact on unemployment or poverty while it had one instrument, keeping inflation below 2 per cent. And there is no inflation in Europe. "

The President appears to suggest the British government could not repeal the Human Rights Act without violating the Belfast Agreement. "There is no doubt at all that the Good Friday agreement takes precedence in international law over the opinion that is the Brexit decision and so forth," the President said. The British government has said that it will replace the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights.

Mr Higgins declined to be drawn on a possible second term.