“We certainly haven’t looked to Europe.” That was the message spilling from
the mouths of Irish Cabinet ministers last night – but, as Alex suggested in a superb post on the matter this morning, their utterances may come to naught.
After all, Europe has certainly looked to Ireland – and it doesn’t like what it sees. Already, Brussels’ moneymen are urging a bailout on the country, and Ireland’s moneymen are thought to be
in “technical discussions” about how that might work. The upshot is that a financial intervention from Europe is now considerably more likely than not. And with that come European demands
over how Ireland should manage its public finances – and raise its taxes.
There are plenty of lessons for all sides in this. Many of them will be repeated insistently over coming weeks – about small countries taking big risks; about the dangers of ceding monetary independence to Europe; about the limits of fiscal restraint in the face of massive banking debts, and so on.
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