Revelations that draft proposals for the Irish December budget had been circulated in a German parliamentary committee were met with horror in Ireland. It has since emerged that they were sent to every finance minister in the EU. Members of Irish opposition parties have been in uproar at the fact that parliamentarians in Berlin were privy to vital information, such as a proposed 2% hike in VAT. Although the government insisted that the plans seen in Berlin were not final, the Irish minister for finance, Michael Noonan, confirmed on Friday that he would indeed be proposing to the government that they increase the top rate of VAT by 2% to 23%. It is one of a number of measures the government says it will have to take to raise €1bn (£856m) in additional taxation as part of total spending cuts and tax increases of €3.8bn. The broad outline of the annual budget is usually known in advance, but the exact details are not revealed by the finance minister until budget day. The Irish people have, however, already been told that they face a string of harsh austerity budgets over the coming years. So, it will come as little surprise that more pain is to come. The fact that the budget plans were found in the Bundestag is most likely due to the fact that its finance committee has to be included in any decision-making on the bailouts, according to a recent ruling by the country's constitutional court. In other countries such a paper would never have left the finance ministry, but in Berlin all the 41 committee members were privy to the information. The reality is that Ireland ceded control over its own finances when it was forced to tap the bailout funds late last year. When the troika of the IMF, ECB and EU rode into town on those dark and dismal days last November there was much talk of the loss of sovereignty. For many something wrested from the British less than a century ago had been squandered due to the chronic mishandling of a banking crisis that was in turn caused by the reckless investment in property development. The worry for peripheral countries like Ireland should be not so much that Berlin is in charge, but the vision that Germany has for the rest of Europe.
Access Investments-Building Awareness - European Union-ROMANIA
Saturday, November 19, 2011
How to win the war you "lost" - Germany is taking on an increasingly dominant role in Europe
Revelations that draft proposals for the Irish December budget had been circulated in a German parliamentary committee were met with horror in Ireland. It has since emerged that they were sent to every finance minister in the EU. Members of Irish opposition parties have been in uproar at the fact that parliamentarians in Berlin were privy to vital information, such as a proposed 2% hike in VAT. Although the government insisted that the plans seen in Berlin were not final, the Irish minister for finance, Michael Noonan, confirmed on Friday that he would indeed be proposing to the government that they increase the top rate of VAT by 2% to 23%. It is one of a number of measures the government says it will have to take to raise €1bn (£856m) in additional taxation as part of total spending cuts and tax increases of €3.8bn. The broad outline of the annual budget is usually known in advance, but the exact details are not revealed by the finance minister until budget day. The Irish people have, however, already been told that they face a string of harsh austerity budgets over the coming years. So, it will come as little surprise that more pain is to come. The fact that the budget plans were found in the Bundestag is most likely due to the fact that its finance committee has to be included in any decision-making on the bailouts, according to a recent ruling by the country's constitutional court. In other countries such a paper would never have left the finance ministry, but in Berlin all the 41 committee members were privy to the information. The reality is that Ireland ceded control over its own finances when it was forced to tap the bailout funds late last year. When the troika of the IMF, ECB and EU rode into town on those dark and dismal days last November there was much talk of the loss of sovereignty. For many something wrested from the British less than a century ago had been squandered due to the chronic mishandling of a banking crisis that was in turn caused by the reckless investment in property development. The worry for peripheral countries like Ireland should be not so much that Berlin is in charge, but the vision that Germany has for the rest of Europe.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I was under the impression that the circulation of the draft proposals was the result of a leak and as such it does not number among the measures entailed by facing up to the consequences of the arch-capitalist game we played for so long.
Loss of sovereignty is one of those phrases I can't quite 'trust'. We live in a world of inter-dependence; platonic sovereignty is a myth under normal conditions, even more so in a union of nations.
If anything, it was the irresponsibility of Ireland's sovereign consumers which has gotten us into this compromise (we could have said 'no' to the mortgages), we can't have our sovereign cake and eat it.
The reality is that Ireland ceded control over its own finances when it was forced to tap the bailout funds late last year. When the troika of the IMF, ECB and EU rode into town on those dark and dismal days last November
Of course the IMF and ECB and god knows who else have seen the budget. They're dictating the budget.
There isn't any story. Ireland lost sovereignty last year. Countries that lose sovereignty are dictated to by whatever countries control them.
No outrage at street level, just resigned acceptance. Sadly more than one person has said to me today that they might as well let Germany run the country as the present government is so totally clueless and utterly incompetent. The Irish have simply given up on their politicians for there is a deep and growing anger with the way that all pre election promises have been abandoned by the government as indeed have the majority of the population, or so they rightly feel.
The queen got a warm reception earlier this year but that ain't nothing to the love and flowers that would be presently be bestowed upon Merkel should she head this way
So what did the Irish expect?
This is what happens when you join a currency union with Germany in control. The Irish are no longer Sovereign. They have sold the freedom they won in blood from the United Kingdom to the EU/ECB ( ie Franco-German Reich) for a few years' of boom, followed by a spectacular bust.
The bailout they accepted from the Eurozone was the price paid for their freedom. When you borrow money from the ECB/CU there are some very nasty strings attached and those strings basically mean that Ireland will, in future, do whatever the EU/ECB (ie Germany and France) tells it.
So VAT is going up by 2%. Tough. Next it will be Corporation Tax - Ireland will lose the only advantage it has in the international business community.
Still thinking the Euro was such a good idea Ireland? Still thinking the EU is the great saviour of an independent Ireland, allowing economic independence from the UK? Maybe ... but the price is your Sovereignty.
I hope the men who fought and died to free you from British rule thought it was worth it.
s time to check your history books people and ignore the utter crap being spouted on this thread.
What do you expect did you not see the whole property boom in Ireland. Or would you rather just choose to ignore the real historical facts.
They had mortgages you could pass on to their children. They also used money from those crazy house prices in Ireland to buy holiday homes in Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria etc etc etc.
Oh how sweet was life in Ireland when house prices were increasing 100% in 16 months and they spent all that money they took from their houses as if it was a real economy.
Look when you caught with your hands firmly in the till and then get away with it scot free and bailed out, you say yes sir , no sir, three bags full sir.
Only thing Scoltand will take away from this sorry mess, is never ever ever buy a house until you can afford it and put a large deposit down to buy it.
They loved spending all that free money on a very nice lifestyle, that only some of us could dream about. Now it's time to pay it all back.
The Irish rejected the Nice and Lisbon treaties 'on the first go.'
That makes it sound like a two-legged football match.
The Irish rejections were not accepted by the European elite.
It should have dawned on the Irish people, at that time, how little their democratic voice was respected.
Unfortunately, the Irish elites had bought into the Euro fantasy.
Since then, most Irish people have woken up to reality of their position in Europe.
Events this week, will not have horrified the Irish as they were already aware of their humiliated status.
But seems jolly sensible that those who know how to run a successful economy should approve it? Perhaps Boy George ought to do the same thing?
But the problem with this attitude is that the German economy is not that succesful. Any economy that has to rely on captive buyers and then prop them up with cheap credit cannot be succesful, they may develop a seemingness of success but never the actuatilty.
And it also ignores the fact that we are only in the current mess (i.e. the huge unpayable debt, not the economic collapse {that one was completely Irish}) simply because our government decided it was a good idea to accept that we should pay for the 157bn Euro bailout of German banks, instead of (what we should have done) telling them to go sling their hooks.
Post a Comment