Ireland given two months to implement hate speech laws or face action from EU
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Is it not my right to not like something? Or even to hate it? If it is not, then we're policing thought crime through the only visible evidence - what is said. Whatever this is a cure for, it's worse than the disease. The cynic in me suspects it not intended as a cure though. It's intended to control.
Can you provide some specific examples of this please?
> Meanwhile people saying "go home" are behind bars
Have you some specific examples that are not due to violent behaviour or inciting violence?
Who has been arrested for saying "go home"? I can't find any example of this.
Or what is "the most ridiculous stuff" Islamists are spouting for that matter?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_by_country#Ir...
It's already a crime to incite violence in many countries, with a spectrum of definitions. Including the USA
However, if there's often rallies and protests against "agile practitioners" and cases of violence against them, then it should count as "hate speech".
In some ways, I see this as similar to "assault" laws where it depends on the specifics of the situation and whether the target is in fear of their safety. e.g. someone holding a knife and backing away from the victim would not be assault, but holding a knife and advancing towards them in a threatening manner most likely would be assault.
Why can't the rallies be permitted while policing the violence if and when it erupts? Banning the rallies themselves preemptively sounds like a great tool for an authoritarian dictator.
I'd consider this more the issue of "consequences". If you think that your speech should be entirely consequence-free, then I completely disagree with you (c.f. shouting "fire" in a crowded cinema). It's not like there's typically any confusion around what "hate speech" sounds like.
> Why can't the rallies be permitted while policing the violence if and when it erupts?
That would be one way to deal with issues, but I'd liken it to a doctor that only treats symptoms and never pre-emptive medication (e.g. medication to lower high blood pressure, but not providing exercise/diet advice that could prevent it). There's also the issue of allowing the extremely dangerous types that motivate crowds to go and commit violence whilst never involving themselves - that would seem like a recipe for disaster.
Otherwise it's the same as the "consequences" of disappearing because you criticised the government.
I don't follow you - what law would be used to prosecute someone that maliciously yelled "fire" in a crowded cinema? As I understand it, the injuries sustained by people would not be attributable directly to the person yelling, but would just be indirect.
Similarly, a person inciting violence amongst a crowd wouldn't be directly responsible for the violence, but would be indirectly responsible. There's a clear need for a law to prevent that kind of harmful behaviour.
In the US this example derives from Justice Holmes dicta in Schenck v. US:
"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. ... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree."
The background of this case is that Charles Schenck and others were distributing leaflets urging the resistance to the military draft during WW1. The Supreme Court upheld this conviction. This case was later overturned in Brandenburg v. Ohio which set a new standard, imminent lawless action, as a limit on free speech.
So strictly speaking what you said is protected. You can absolutely have a play where a character shouts "fire" during the course of the script with a full theater watching. If someone knowingly shouted "fire" with the intent of causing a panic then that can venture into unprotected speech.
Hate speech, in the US, is not a thing that exists in the legal landscape. This has been tested in the courts numerous times, e.g. Snyder v. Phelps, Virginia v. Black, R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, etc. It's important to note that in the US hate crime laws are a thing and while speech is quite nearly unlimited, actions are not.
The issue I see with those advocating for hate speech laws is that their time horizon for its use is too short. All governments throughout history have gone through phases from formation to internal civil strife to revolutions and ultimately the death of the government itself. While hate speech laws can limit hateful rhetoric in the short term - from the perspective of supporters - the long term application of these laws can take on a completely different goal as societies evolve over time. I would rather suffer hateful rhetoric with some limits at the extremes - imminent lawless action - than entrust the government with such a power over long time spans.
The laws differ by country, but you'll find most EU countries don't require inciting violence to make it a crime - hate is enough by itself:
While I support the idea the issue is that hate speech laws are usually only used in "majority against the minority", despite the minority being even more vulgar and racist than the natives.
Indeed, history is full of examples of speech laws being used by those in power to silence those not in power, from war protestors (WW1 to Vietnam) to civil rights protestors. The U.S. courts didn't start out with the current expansive interpretation of free speech. Initially they tried various ways of stopping only the "bad speech" while permitting the "good speech. Over decades of trial and error, the U.S. courts saw how it always ended in abuse of the powerless by the powerful and eventually realized the only long-term solution is expansive free speech rights for all.
Personally, I think the U.S. legal system eventually managed to get free speech rights into a very good balance. While I find the first amendment protected speech of some of my fellow Americans to be reprehensible and disgusting, I'll defend their right to speak because the alternative of granting the government the power to punish words instead of actions is far scarier.
It doesn't have free speech laws, it has a collective delusion.
While I agree the current US administration is exercising the executive branch's discretionary power in novel and aggressive ways I certainly don't approve of, the student examples I'm aware of involve leveraging existing immigration laws where the student is on a conditional visa which can be revoked on subjective grounds which amount to little more than 'being undesirable'.
The relevant immigration laws aren't new and haven't changed. The only difference is they are now being enforced in cases where they previously weren't. While some of these have clearly been examples of selective enforcement based on the student's behavior including speech, the administration is resorting to non-speech immigration laws because they can't punish the student's speech directly. In fact, there were many more students protesting alongside those deported who the administration has been unable to touch because they are citizens or legal residents. Despite the regrettable outcome for these students, this is evidence the first amendment is not only strong but remains an almost untouchable 'third rail' in both U.S. law and U.S. politics.
The issues around various Washington law and lobbying firms which I know of aren't speech related, they're just a new tactic in typical partisan warfare. That warfare itself isn't new. Every time the administration changes parties the fortunes of 'the other side's' law and lobbying firms change through losing discretionary contracts, clearances and approvals. We normally just don't hear about it. This is especially true when Congress is controlled by the same party as the White House (which tends to happen every 8 to 12 years and last for two years).
So, I agree with you in strongly disapproving of these new tactics and aggressive partisan gamesmanship, especially because now that the Republicans have introduced these new tactics, history shows the Democrats will use them in retaliation when they regain power. My point was specific. The US courts have done a good job balancing the interpretation of the first amendment (although it took over a hundred years of correcting early bad rulings), which I still believe is true. However, I didn't say that about other areas of U.S. law which still need improvement. Notably selective enforcement and executive branch discretionary authority. The silver lining to the current dark cloud is now that the current admin has 'weaponized' these discretionary powers it's already triggered a large number of legal challenges, so the courts will have the opportunity to tighten interpretations of current laws. In cases where current laws don't address these issues, it will be up to future Congresses to create or amend laws. Personally, I think both of these areas could benefit from new legislation - especially selective enforcement. Current U.S. law has some restrictions on selective enforcement but it's limited to certain domains. I'm in favor of making enforcement of most laws and regulations a 'use it or lose it' proposition for government. If they chose to not enforce it before, they can't suddenly start to enforce it now. Obviously, that's a pretty radical approach and would have a lot of interesting consequences but I think it would be net positive. For one, it would almost certainly result in unenforced laws being effectively repealed (and we have a lot of those, especially on the state level). But I think the most valuable aspect would be forcing administrators and courts to decide which laws we actually need and to more precisely define policies for enforcing them instead of relying on ad hoc subjective judgements of bureaucrats and politicians.
Back on the OP topic of 'hate speech' laws in the EU, the current shit show in the U.S. should be a huge wake up call to EU citizens that it's a very bad idea to grant government the power to punish speech instead of just actions. I believe representative democracy is the best political system but worry not enough people understand that in a democracy, when choosing how much power to give to the government, it's crucial to realize people you don't like will sometimes be in power and they'll abuse the power you granted government back when people you liked were in control. What's happening now in the U.S. is a hard reminder of this eternal truth. I believe Trump's actions will lead to all U.S. presidents having less discretionary power in the future - and that's a good thing.
... by abusing the fact that the student in question is not a citizen, thereby working around that whole pesky First Amendment thing.
If anything, this goes to show what would happen to everyone if they could do that. And the obvious takeaway from it is that First Amendment should apply in full to immigrants, including obvious retaliation through unrelated immigration regulations.
if the first amendment doesnt apply to permanent residents, then all other laws shouldnt apply either, meaning foreigners should be exempt of all taxes?
Criminal Justice (Hate Offences) Act 2024 : https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/bills/bill/2022/105/
It appears, by my very brief skimming, to cover issues raised in the article here but is seen as light on the Hate Speech aspects ...
Hate crime legislation came into effect at the end of December last year but controversially omitted references to hate speech, defined as public incitements to violence of hatred against a group or member of a group based on certain characteristics.
With mosque burning, synagogue grafitti, shop front smashing in the {X} neighbourhood, etc. criminal acts in both IE and the (non IE) EU.
“… public incitement to violence of hatred …”
How does that work as English?
Capitalized the primary nouns in each phrase. Basically inciting people into hatred of a particular group, with violent connotations such as burning places of worship, etc.
It matters, too, because my suspicion is they want to punish hatred as though it were violence.
Do you think the EU is so bandwidth-limited it cannot do other things while discussing hate speech laws with Ireland?
Crimea is complex, but I can't really see what the EU could have done to prevent Brexit, while keeping itself whole. UK was so desperate to leave, they ended up crashing out.
I personally think the EU gets the blame for a whole load of things that are not really in their remit, while not getting the credit for other things it does well. Like hate speech laws, or the other things I listed.
Despite losing a relatively large economy in the block, the results of Brexit were so embarrassingly disastrous for the UK, that even the far right parties in the mainland, that had the common talking point of leaving the EU, had to switch their rhetoric to "reform" the EU (which is weakening it from the inside). Leaving the EU became sort of unpopular.
(Another pair is Sweden-Germany: 0.959)
Update: by good or bad I took you to having meant whether they are reliable or not. Oops!
Typically it's not that sound arguments shape our moral positions, but that our moral positions determine what we consider sound arguments.
"We should pass a law to strip all legal rights from, and enslave, everyone who is of [pick some minority group]. Neither I, nor most people, belong to that minority, so most of us will benefit from this slave labor."
"Whoever has the most skill at arguing is morally right."
If a soap-box preacher preaches out loud "adulterers should be stoned to death" or a Nazi holds out a banner saying "death to blacks and jews", is that protected? Even in trump's america, that is protected and we value that dearly. How does hate speech work in Europe, do they really forbid people from speaking their minds entirely?
The distinction in the US as I understand it is that those speakers did not make specific or elaborate plans to incite violence, they mere shared or tried to spread their unpopular beliefs, and that is protected and their right. But if the preacher said "let us stone those prostitutes to death" or the Nazi said "Let us kill the blacks and jews in our city" that is a threat of violence, a very serious felony.
I am just trying to understand the distinction here, because if those people are not free to simply share their views without inciting or threatening specific acts of violence, then I would deem Europe a dangerous place to visit for anyone that aspires towards original and critical thinking.
The general idea behind EU's freedom of speech is that its totally acceptable for expressing controversial ideas or questioning norms, like a religious leader could do. Calling for harm or hate (like some religious leader do) is not acceptable.
> do they really forbid people from speaking their minds entirely?
"Yes" could be an answer here, but we could legitimately wonder if a right mind would think "we should kill all the ones I don't like"
> "Yes" could be an answer here, but we could legitimately wonder if a right mind would think "we should kill all the ones I don't like"
You're right, but the point is not whether such persons are in their right mind, evil, horrible,etc... society can view them as such just fine. The point is, should the state be imprisoning such people simply for stating their views. For example in the US, I'm sure you've seen videos of people being explicitly racist in public, they don't get arrested but they do lose their jobs and livelihoods.
the concept of hate-speech gives the state the right to police speech that is merely unpopular, with no immediate harm to anyone. What if Europe slides to the far-right, and Nazis become a protected group and criticizing them is now considered hate-speech? That has dire implications. You can see this happening in the US right now, but at least we can still be critical of MAGA, the concept of making that hate-speech does not exist, so we still have a fighting chance, they can't pass laws that will allow them to spread false information without others criticizing it by redefining legal definitions of such terms (which they can do).
Not true. Legislators write the laws, courts interpret them. Basic civics. Laws are not written as "we can police any speech", and courts don't interpret them as such.
They usually say whatever they want, usually surrounded with a "it's my right" without thinking about the whole process. Once they said whatever they said, what's next? What's the purpose of their message? Is it to express your anger in life and that you think that the source is some random ethnicity or community or do you want to improve everyone's quality of life?
With the recent shift towards extreme individualism, the philosophy behind the essence of freedom of speech has disappeared. Some are now focusing towards improving one individual's quality of life at the expense of the others.
In Europe, they FAFO the extense of free speech and that led to WWII. They said never again because they understood the consequences of full freedom of speech.
Even in the US, nobody has a full freedom of speech. How would a parent react if their kid would say "fuck off" to an elementary school teacher?
In a democracy, the government gets its power from the people. if it can silence the people in certain contexts, then in those contexts the people lost their power. When politicians with bad intent take power, they'll use this crack in the system to tear it apart.
The current US administration is trying to officially get rid of habeas corpus, even though the government has already arrested people without due process.
Even when freedom of speech is fully enshrined into law, anyone with bad intent won't care.
I define what dignity is, and I think you should have none. And I actively incite others to remove your dignity.
If this was real, I am not really sure if you would think I should exercise my free speech to your standards, especially if you thought that harm to you was tangible.
It's all fun and games until we are enacting a Kristallnacht.
The reason the US isn't like EU in this regard is that hating tyranny is the cause of its founding. Being able to hate the british's oppressive rule was crucial, being able to organize a rebellion around that hatred is how the US exists. And in current times, being able to hate MAGA and neo-fascism is important.
However, hatred and conspiracy to harm people are different things. Inciting specific harm against anyone is illegal both in the EU and the US today. "you can't yell 'fire' in a crowd" and all.
Let's get a bit more practical, why can't Muslims living in Europe consider anything critical of their prophet is hate-speech? Or laws opposing revenge killings and their treatment of women is hate-speech and religious bigotry? I can assure you to them it feels severely harmful, their passionate response is from a place of hurt and pain. I don't see why any of that is not banned under hate speech laws.
The crucial point here is that the people have a contract with their government such that the government is allowed certain powers. The question here is "can the government police speech that doesn't involve potential and specific harm?". In the US, Islamic imams can preach sermons on Sharia law in promotion of revenge killings and other imams or even other religious leaders can criticize that sermon and preach in its opposition. From what I understand, in the EU, they can't preach that and no one can really criticize them, but their followers still hold that belief with no opportunity to observe the topic debated.
Only if your "original and critical thinking" is racism, homophobia, and similar.
You could argue that banning this comes with more downsides than upsides. Fair enough. But to call this "original and critical thinking" is very odd to put it mildly.
After we made the 'exception' for 'hate' your political opponents transformed overnight to whatever the definition of 'hate' is.
How difficult is it to find 'conservatives are nazis' or 'reform are nazis' or 'afd are nazis' or 'national rally are nazis'?
dismissals from the administrative classes only inflame it. we are anticipating similar speech laws in canada to prevent resistance to a commitment by the new PM to double the national population within 14 years (5% annual immigration compounding).
the message from the EU and the networks behind these policies elsewhere reduces to, "resistance is hate, citizen" and they're trying to move fast enough to get ahead of the growing sentiment for a just war of defence they know they are starting with their erasure of national cultures.
i wouldnt underestimate the impact of these laws and the efforts behind them or the reaction that has been building.
Ireland also choose to join the EU, how are they being "colonized".
the cause of the hate speech is not actually race based, but behavioral. all that standing around and loitering in public is anti-economic activity, where not only is it unproductive, but nobody wants to invest in anything (property improvements, homes, businesses) where these men gather to loiter. it destroys economic value in the towns and broader society when people no longer want to invest in local economies because of mass anti-economic activity. the flight from US cities like SF is a useful control example.
enforce loiting and vagrancy laws instead of inventing "hate speech" laws, and the underlying integration problems vanish almost instantly.
The European Coal and Steel Community was created in 1952, to make it harder for members to have the independent industrial capacity to mobilise against each other. Particularly France and Germany, whose grievances began with the Franco Prussian war of 1870 and rumbled on through two world wars.
It became the EU federal superstate we have today because politicians can’t resist a power grab. The EU was created in 1993, so the entity you refer to was not created to end European wars. Because the “member states” (it will never refer to countries) had already been NATO members for decades at that point, guaranteeing each others safety and making invasions like the previous ones unimaginable and infeasible. In fact, with it’s obsession of absorbing more territory and people, gaining power, and lukewarm attitude towards NATO, I think it’s more likely to start a war than prevent one.
where I think they are about to cause war is the EU's (and now UK's) attacks on farmers and cynical mass immigration together are creating the conditions for popular revolt in several countries. hate speech laws are to prevent people from organizing popular resistance to these policies.
that we have the tech to make hate speech laws unenforcable means the EU will have shown its undeniable malice toward europeans while demonstrating its own weakness. it would be forfeiting moral authority during an attempt to destroy these national cultures with draconian speech laws, and I would bet against it surviving the popular counterpunch. this counterpunch scenario is the war I would foresee being a likely result.
Such heavy-handed, draconian laws give ammo to Holocaust deniers.
I would rather them having imaginary ammo by being punished for it.
"Your knowledge is as valid as my ignorance" is a scocietal disease every country is facing right now to varying degrees of severity because bad ideas spread fast.
The thought that bad ideas can be challenged fairly in an open marketplace is a utopia. Most people are not interested in truth. They would rather touch themselves.
You are very optimistic that unshackled free speech will ensure that bad ideas are not given a free pass, but in reality bad ideas very often smother the discussion when people adopt a stance of "my ignorance is as valid as your knowledge".
By the way, you applied a suspicious change of rhetorical focus when the original terminology was "vile ideas" and you switched that to "challenging ideas". I'll consider that an accidental slip instead of malice.
A century ago, mainstream society openly embraced racial hierarchies as scientific fact. Three centuries ago, slavery was not only legal, but morally justified by churches and universities. In 17th-century New England, people were executed for witchcraft based on superstition and mass hysteria. Well into the 20th century, eugenics was considered respectable science across Europe and North America. So I don't think these current times are any worse than they were before in terms of bad ideas existing in the mainstream, at least from a historical perspective. In fact, I'd probably argue it's better.
> Also, far too many times past societies accepted vile ideas as valid information with terrible results.
This is true of any society. The key difference is that they are easier to challenge in a place with strong free speech protections. Bad ideas will always exist, but it's better to test them out in the open rather than let them fester in dark.
> You are very optimistic that unshackled free speech will ensure that bad ideas are not given a free pass, ...
You're right, I am. I believe in a marketplace of ideas because it's better than any alternative that involves gatekeeping truth. The notion that "my ignorance is as valid as your knowledge" is a cultural problem, not a legal one. I trust free speech over any system that relies on a sanctioned arbiter of truth. And I think that protection of people from bad ideas often backfires (see European history and the Catholic Church, McCarthyism, Nazi propaganda, Soviet censorship, etc.)
I choose to believe that a democratically elected government with proper functioning institutions can regulate speech properly instead.
Absolute freedom is not possible nor desirable to live in a society. And cultural problems should be addressed with regulations. If it was cultural norm to engage in revenge killings, I would very much expect government to step in and stop that, not to take a wishy-washy stance "eh, it is a cultural problem" and handwave it away.
I see unshackled free speech as much more dangerous than that of a democracy being overzealous in speech, as the first can absolutely undermine democracy if enough imbeciles decide to believe in.... erm... "challenging" ideas (and I use those quotes very sarcastically).
A proper democracy being overzealous can be fixed by the democratic process.
The democratic process can only work if citizens are fully informed on the issues, which is precisely what censorship prevents. It allows complete excision of some viewpoints from political discourse and even actual voting (if parties can be banned on the basis that their platforms contain such and such). Imagine for a moment what happens that your democratic society decides that advocating against hate speech laws is itself hate speech.
Ah yes, if only citizens could speak that the Holocaust didn't happens and could call black people monkeys, then they would ve fully informed to do Democracy.
> Imagine for a moment what happens that your democratic society decides that advocating against hate speech laws is itself hate speech.
This is some outlandish claim, that would need some serious argument to support how it might come to pass.
A proper democracy with functioning institutions has a lot of checks and balances to avoid outlandish bullshit to become law.
Abuse of free speech has almost always been justified by those very "proper institutions" that you place so much faith in. I'd say you're being a wee bit optimistic about them. One embarrassing example that comes to mind was during the Troubles [1]
> I see unshackled free speech as much more dangerous than that of a democracy being overzealous in speech, as the first can absolutely undermine democracy if enough imbeciles decide to believe in.... erm... "challenging" ideas (and I use those quotes very sarcastically).
> A proper democracy being overzealous can be fixed by the democratic process.
You assume a “proper” democracy won’t go too far, and if it does, democracy will fix it. Yet, speech is what allows people to challenge, protest, and critique. So regulating that speech undermines the very tools needed for democratic correction. Also, free speech is often what prevents overstepping in the first place.
> If it was cultural norm to engage in revenge killings, I would very much expect government to step in and stop that, not to take a wishy-washy stance "eh, it is a cultural problem" and handwave it away.
Indeed, so would I! But there is a difference between violent actions and bad ideas, and there can be laws for violent actions without needing to suppress discussion about them. We don’t need to outlaw speech in order to outlaw violence. Ultimately, I think robust free speech doesn’t undermine democracy but protects it, even if um "challenging ideas" (I'm smirking) are uncomfortable to hear
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988%E2%80%931994_British_broa...
At one point, Russia decided to enact anti-extremist legislation similar to your enlightened European hate speech laws. It criminalized hateful speech directed at "identifiable social groups".
Then we found out that "identifiable social groups" include the corrupt police and members of parliament.
David Irving had a great opportunity to make his case .. he failed several times over:
The court found that Irving was an active Holocaust denier, antisemite and racist, who "for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence".
There was a time the lab leak covid theory was hate speech, people were calling people racists for mentioning it. Sometimes simply stating statistics can get construed as hate speech.
I'm sure there's other good examples, but at the end of the day it just creates a bar for those trying to silence a topic to reach.
Holocaust denial is not hate speech. People should be allowed to question a historic event. People should be allowed to think.
I think you got the facts mixed up. The person who wrote the op ed was not an American citizen and they were not jailed, they were ordered to return to their home country. They were on a student visa which is conditional and it is a privilege, not a right. They raised some flags and the student visa was revoked.
Some people favour freedom of speech above all else, and reject the notion it should be curbed for fuzzy concepts such as societal benefit.
Some people think freedom of speech should work for the society. We limit it anyway - threats of violence are always out. So might as well push this boundary a bit.
I found it useless to debate the merits of these points because, as I say, it seems to be dogmatic. You believe either one or the other.
Personally I'm in the second camp. And frankly more so since Trump and his "free speech absolutists" won. Musk seems to be censoring Twitter all over, support for Israel is boundless but speak up for Palestine and ICE detains you... If "absolute free speech" is curbed by whatever the government likes, then what's the point?
The existence of imperfections isn’t a reason to abandon the principle. Things take time to work thru the courts and such.
Twitter is a private platform, though, so it's not government censorship. Musk can censor all he likes there, but there are still multiple alternative avenues for communicating those viewpoints. When government censors something, it applies universally, so this isn't comparable.
> peak up for Palestine and ICE detains you
... if you're not a citizen. This is an example of why the 1st Amendment in US doesn't go far enough, because it doesn't fully protect free speech rights of certain groups (at least as this administration interprets it; the courts are still working through the challenges, so we'll see). I find it very strange that you're using this example as an argument that there should be fewer free speech protections - do you want FBI to start detaining citizens as well when they criticize Israel? Because that's exactly what would happen if 1A would be gone tomorrow somehow.
Are the implying Ireland needs to boost up those conviction numbers? With only 5 convicted, someone is clearly not doing their job.
I am getting a faint whiff of a conviction quota. Comrades Stalin and Yezhov would be proud
Let us take a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NKVD_Order_No._00447
> By the autumn of 1937, the pressure to achieve arrests was so great that the NKVD interrogators began picking out names from the telephone directory or preselecting married men with children who, as every agent knew, were the quickest to confess
Can't they just pick out some random names from Facebook and convict them, I am sure they are guilty of something /s
I wonder if the Irish would have still decided to join the EU, if they had known the EU would then write their speech laws.
It's debatable to what extent the realization of the EU contributed to the Good Friday Agreement, and the Celtic Tiger, but in the minds of most Irish, the correlation is meaningful.
So I will hazard a guess that few Irish regret joining the EU.
If anyone reading this is actually Irish, perhaps they could address this?
Regardless, even if this is the clear result of a vote, and not some creative interpretation of law, Ireland has 14 MEPs, Germany has 96, and the whole EU has 720. Ireland can be dragged into anything even if their MEPs are in unanimous opposition. And given Irish resistance to changing their laws in this direction, clearly they don't all agree, which is why the EU must threaten them into compliance.
But in reality yea, the EU is essentially at the articles of confederation stage of the US. The EU has been flexing its muscles with what laws they can enforce on their members, and I'd expect the eventual EU army to be the turning point where people start to realize the EU election is likely more important, or at least equally important, as their local elections.