“The weakest link? Maybe it’s best not to ask that too loudly.”

The Irish Times‘ Arthur Beesley has been asking some ‘stupid’ questions in Brussels about the Irish Government’s plan for the Anglo-Irish Bank and its dependence on Europe.  From the Irish Times

Investor types who lend billions to Ireland want final figures for the Anglo wind-down; the Government can’t provide same yet, its credibility over the bank is in some doubt anyway and Europe anxiously wants the brouhaha to quickly go away.

But will it? Can it? When people do talk here about Ireland it’s whispery stuff and great seriousness is implied. So too is the sense that the reliance of Ireland’s banks on the State is increasingly seen as a point of significant weakness in the wider European scene.

The weakest link? Maybe it’s best not to ask that too loudly.

Crucial to the focus on Ireland is the lingering fear of an EU-wide double-dip recession and worry that the outbreak of another banking crisis could undermine the nascent but fragile recovery of its wider economy. With 23 million people unemployed in the EU, almost 16 million of them in euro-zone countries, any slip back into recession would be very costly indeed.

Thus the system is on high alert. Spain felt the heat before the holiday season, but came back from the brink. Now it’s Dublin’s turn.

Read the whole thing.

Pete Baker