When solving this problem I figured out that I need to disable the site-wise init files in order to get my emacs + CEDET running (everything works nicely when starting emacs using emacs --no-site-file but is broken without the additional argument).
I'd like to disable the site-wise init files permanently but as I'm using several different approaches/methods when launching emacs (launcher/panel/terminal) I don't think aliasing it in my .zshrc won't work.
I require a method to permanently disable all site-start files. Is there any easy way to achieve this? Thanks!
Creating a wrapper in /usr/local/bin/emacs should allow you to override the default emacs system-wide, provided you have write access and a sane PATH.
Having said that, advising eieio to load cedet migh be a more adequate workaround.