Atlantic International Partnership Headlines: Ireland’s progress on meeting conditions of EU-IMF programme for financial support

http://atlanticinternationalpartnershipreviews.com/?p=51MARGINAL NOTES : GYRÖGY MATOLCSY, the Hungarian finance minister and the current chairman of the EU Council of Economic and Finance ministers, knows a thing or two about embracing the IMF, his country having received a €20 billion bailout in 2008. Hungary, which holds the rotating EU presidency, is still struggling with an unwieldy deficit, but it has enjoyed a bond rally of late, which means its borrowing costs are falling.
DEMOCRACY CAN sometimes get in the way of the smooth passage of financial “assistance”. The Irish electorate’s comprehensive rejection of the Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition in the February election has meant the deal has had to be renegotiated in painstaking detail, even if the resulting revised deal resembles the original quite a bit. The EU and IMF are now at a similar crossroads with Portugal.
IRELAND’S FINANCE “partners” are scheduled to carry out a total of 13 quarterly reviews of the State’s progress in reshaping the economy along more acceptable lines between now and the end of 2013. The phrase “the Irish authorities will present a comprehensive report” crops up more than once in the list of “actions” to be completed between now and then.
“STRUCTURAL reform objectives” is Government jargon for cutting wages in sectors such as retail, catering and contract cleaning that are covered by employment regulation orders (EROs) or registered employment agreements (REAs).
Reducing replacement rates (the ratio of income in work to income while out of work) traditionally involves the cutting of social welfare payments, officially in order to avoid poverty traps – a strategy that tends to stand a better chance of succeeding when there are actual jobs available.
FORMER MINISTER for finance Brian Lenihan has accused Jean Claude Trichet and his colleagues at the European Central Bank of forcing Ireland into accepting the €85 billion bailout package, suggesting that some members briefed against Ireland and implying this was a “betrayal”. Internal politics within the Frankfurt-based institution tend to be complex.