Europe – Page 14 – Slugger O'Toole

“Honesty and realism have been fleeting visitors to the campaign trail.”

Pete Baker on May 5, 2011, 2:28 pm

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A Belfast Telegraph editorial today argues The campaign itself has been moribund with little vision and plenty of uncosted commitments which will have to be abandoned over the next few years. Honesty and realism have been fleeting visitors to the campaign trail. The good ship Duopoly appears to be sailing serenely with the DUP and Sinn Fein in what appears to be a stately procession back to power. ………….. We need strong, alternative parties to counter the Sinn Fein/DUP grip …

“Civilised Europeans could indeed transcend boundaries – but the ‘barbarians’ would be kept resolutely beyond them.”

Pete Baker on May 3, 2011, 11:25 pm

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In the Irish Times Arthur Beesley suggests that the outcome of any review of the Schengen Agreement, as recently called for by France and Italy, will lead to tighter controls of external EU borders – at a time when non-EU countries, particularly in northern Africa, face increasing civil unrest. From the Irish Times report …temporary [internal EU] border controls can already be introduced under the existing regime. All that is required to waive the rules for 30 days is the declaration of a “serious threat” …

Euro crisis: “the EU is setting itself up for failure”

Pete Baker on April 26, 2011, 4:06 pm

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In a lengthy article posted at Crooked Timber, John Quiggin and Henry Farrell argue that By concentrating on its economic problems but ignoring their political consequences, the EU is setting itself up for failure. The case for austerity does not make sense. And if the EU fails to deal with the political fallout of its own institutional weaknesses, it is going to collapse. No political body can force voters to repeatedly shoulder the costs of adjustment on their own and expect …

Finland goes to the polls

Pete Baker on April 17, 2011, 6:47 pm

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Finland’s general election today represents one of those domestic political pressures, in Ireland and elsewhere, I mentioned which could have much wider ramifications. As RTÉ reports The reason the outcome of this election is being watched so closely is that Finland’s parliament has the right to vote on EU bailouts, such as the one currently being negotiated between Portugal and EU and IMF officials. And as EU rules state that any bailout must be approved unanimously by all 17 eurozone members, …

Euro crisis: “The Government is due to consider a potential programme of asset disposals…”

Pete Baker on April 16, 2011, 4:30 pm

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Greece were the first of the PIGS to request a EU-IMF bail-out – with the threat of contagion, as Mack’s timeline records, leading to the construction of a wider mechanism which Ireland, eventually, availed of. The result, according to ECB executive Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, of the “choice of economic model” by “successive governments, and their voters”. As Tim Garton Ash commented at the time, “The crisis of the eurozone has only just begun.” A year on and, as BBC Europe editor Gavin Hewitt noted …

“What is clear is that Dublin’s perspective will not be the defining one.”

Pete Baker on April 5, 2011, 4:44 pm

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In his Irish Times European Diary Arthur Beesley sketches out the domestic political pressures elsewhere which may hinder the Irish Government’s attempt to renegotiate the terms of their bail-out. From the Irish Times article In Portugal, fellow socialist Jose Socrates talked himself into an early election a few weeks ago by failing to win support for a new austerity drive. The country is said to be in a funk of despair over the prospects of a bailout. Look northwards from Spain …

“The net point is that Ireland’s lenders retain all the power…”

Pete Baker on April 1, 2011, 9:01 pm

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With tensions rising across Europe, in the Irish Times Arthur Beesley maps out the territory as the Irish Government prepares to attempt to tentatively restart the debate on reducing Ireland’s bail-out interest rate. As noted previously, Arthur Beesley has highlighted some of this territory before The Government’s position is not at all strong, so repeated claims that the situation is now so grave as to merit pursuing senior bonds serves to emphasise the requirement for something else to ease the pain. Important …

A momentous day for Ireland and the eurozone

Brian Walker on March 31, 2011, 10:14 am

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Spelling out the full horror of it, Robert Peston describes a crisis even deeper than publicly admitted. The one glimmer of hope is that the rich States of the EU and other major investors now admit they are intimately implicated. Rather than presenting themselves as strict but magnanimous bailers out of little Ireland, they are gradually being forced to recognise their self-interest in a better system to protect ther own savers who invested in Ireland in the first place. And yet the final form of that recognition …

“What will be the end of this sorry saga?”

Pete Baker on March 30, 2011, 4:30 pm

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With tensions rising across Europe, Irish Life and Permanent suspended trading earlier today amid speculation that it would have to sell its profitable pensions and investments business, Irish Life, and its fund management business, Irish Life Investment Managers, after the publication of the bank stress test results tomorrow. That publication is also expected to result in further nationalisation of the Irish banking sector with the banks expected to need “as much as 30bn euros ($42bn; £26bn) in additional capital”. The BBC’s Robert Peston, …

Euro crisis: “The fix is not in. A line has not been drawn. And tensions are rising.”

Pete Baker on March 25, 2011, 7:59 pm

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What to make of the news emerging at the end of the two-day EU summit in Brussels? It depends. The RTÉ report tells us The EU is battling to stem a debt crisis that has raged for over a year and led Ireland and Greece to accept bailouts. It had promised to unveil a comprehensive solution at this summit that it hoped would reassure jittery markets. But the abrupt resignation of Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates on the eve of …

Euro crisis: “If Portugal asks, we will be ready to intervene…”

Pete Baker on March 24, 2011, 6:59 pm

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To the apparent outrage of some, last night Taoiseach Enda Kenny agreed to defer seeking a conclusion to talks on reducing Ireland’s bail-out interest rate at the two-day EU summit in Brussels. At the IIEA blog, Karl Whelan argued After a lot of fighting talk about renegotiation during the recent election campaign, the new Irish leader Enda Kenny probably feels a certain amount of pressure to come home from this summit with a deal on the interest rate. My advice, for what …

Here we go again!

Brian Walker on March 18, 2011, 7:45 am

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So the old imperial powers Britain and France are the ones to take the lead in stopping Gadaffi. MOD sources are telling the BBC that they expect British forces to be in action “within days”. France has just forecast military action against Libya “within hours.” This may be a bluff -calling move to press Gadaffi to call an halt on his promised advance on Benghazi “within hours.” But whose bluff is about to be called? America’s studied refusal to take a …

US dithering over Libya suggests the moment of overstretch has arrived

Brian Walker on March 16, 2011, 2:16 pm

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Just to lift sights out of the island for a bit, a pre-Paddy’s Day reflection on America that has nothing to do with Ireland. This it will be noted, is in accord with Ireland’s new found modesty about its own importance across the pond. To Europeans, not to mention pro-democracy Arabs, Obama’s silence over Libya is deafening. And yet Americans seem content with that, relieved perhaps that coverage of Gadaffi’s threatened roll-over of the Libyan revolution has been virtually wiped out …

Is corporation tax north and south on the brink of harmonisation?

Brian Walker on March 15, 2011, 8:01 am

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New Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan’s pitch for more time to pay back the bailout at a steady predictable level seems to have hit deadlock over the sacred cow of 12.5 % corporation tax, the Irish Times’ Arthur Beesley reports. Mr Noonan also said the Government was not for turning on the country’s corporate taxation rate, but French finance minister Christine Lagarde called for a “gesture” in return for lower bailout costs. “Without that we won’t budge on the interest …

“The result is a crisis in European democracy”

Pete Baker on March 14, 2011, 4:06 pm

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On the back of a survey of more than 5,000 people of working age in the UK, Germany, France, Poland and Spain, the Guardian editorialises on the future of the EU. They’re promising a month long series of articles mapping out the social, political and economic terrain. From the Guardian editorial The poll we publish today is taken from a sample of more than 5,000 people of working age in the five leading EU states – Britain, France, Germany, Spain and …

Mission to Mars…

Pete Baker on March 13, 2011, 8:41 pm

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The US National Research Council have expressed doubts about the extent of US involvement in the planned joint ESA/Nasa rover mission to Mars, as well as two subsequent orbiter missions – one to the Jovian moon Europa and the other to Uranus. But, for now, Mars remains under close scrutiny. The latest false colour image from the Hi-RISE camera on Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the Mars rover Opportunity at the edge of a football-field sized crater, Santa Maria, where it’s been exploring …

“Corporation tax is now mentioned as a quid pro quo”

Pete Baker on March 12, 2011, 1:15 pm

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Encouraging noises are one thing, but at the first EU late nighter of Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s tenure the BBC reports some possibly premature tweeting from EU President Herman Van Rompuy. In a message on Twitter, Mr Van Rompuy had initially said: “We have an agreement on the Pact for Euro.” The message was later amended to: “Update from ongoing meeting: Agreement in principle on the Pact for the Euro, but still discussing the other elements of the package.” A pact would …

“the largest capital grant scheme ever run by the Department of Agriculture”

Pete Baker on March 9, 2011, 5:34 pm

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The BBC’s Martin Cassidy notes the NI Audit Office report into the Farm Nutrient Management Scheme, through which some 4000 farmers received grants worth £121million – the largest capital grant scheme ever run by the Department of Agriculture. When, in June 2007, the NI Finance Department gave its formal approval to extend the scheme to provide grant aid to all applications received before 31 March 2006, they had raised concerns about the affordability of the scheme. One of the conditions of the formal …

Euro crisis: “Expect some late nights.”

Pete Baker on March 8, 2011, 11:35 pm

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More encouraging noises for the incoming Taoiseach from the European Union’s economic and monetary affairs commissioner, Olli Rehn. As the Irish Times reports “I can see that there is a case to reduce the interest rates paid by Greece and Ireland,” the commissioner said. “In that context, it is important that we also look at loan maturities so that we can go beyond the hump of 2014 and 2015 and that also contributes to debt sustainability . . . The essential …

Rehn: “I expect this issue of pricing policy will be looked at from the overall European perspective…”

Pete Baker on February 28, 2011, 2:43 pm

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The European Union’s economic and monetary affairs commissioner, Olli Rehn, has been making somewhat encouraging noises [for the new Irish government] ahead of a series of key European meetings for the incoming Taoiseach. From the Irish Times breaking news report “We look forward to continue supporting the Irish people and the next Irish government in the implementation of the EU- IMF program, which is key for Ireland’s economy and its revival,” Mr Rehn told reporters in Brussels. “We have the common …