If true this is madness. It can’t be true, surely: can it?
Dublin is lobbying Paris against pushing for changes to the core treaty text or anything that could be considered “constitutional” in character and require a second Irish referendum for ratification.
Source: here.
The Free Exchange blog at the Economist’s website makes the point that the flip side of postulating that the Irish and Spanish governments were insufficiently countercyclical during the boom is that countercyclical deficits are symmetrically helpful during downturns. (Self-publicity disclaimer – the post cites my work with Agustin Benetrix on fiscal cyclicality). Of course, the asymmetry of credit constraints means that countercyclicality during downturns is more possible for governments that retain the trust of the sovereign debt markets. More generally, even for countries that must rely on official financing, it indicates that the speed of adjustment must be carefully designed. Indeed, as emphasised by quotes from Olli Rehn in this FT article yesterday, the EU fiscal framework recognises that flexibility is needed in the interpretation of fiscal rules.
“The stability and growth pact is not stupid,” Mr Rehn will say, according to a draft of his address seen by the FT. “Yes, the EU fiscal framework is rules-based … but at the same time, the pact entails considerable scope for judgement when it comes to its application.”
I hope Karl does not mind a link to his post back here on the mother ship. Karl’s post does a very nice job explaining that the Treaty does not imply additional austerity beyond what Ireland is committed to under the revised Stability and Growth Pact. This fact does not seem to be getting through.
The basic conclusion (emphasis in original):
. . . Yes campaigners have failed to highlight that the treaty does not, in fact, imply additional austerity in the coming years relative to what would occur if there was a No vote, even if the EU did decide to fund Ireland via EFSF or some other vehicle. The fiscal parameters laid down in the treaty are all part of the existing EU fiscal framework that Ireland is already operating within and would continue to operate within after a No vote.
The National Library has launched its web archive for the 2011 presidential election; it includes this site. Explanation below – more details here.
By the way, an interesting summary of this blog’s readership is provided:
Compared with all internet users, Irisheconomy.ie appeals more to users who have postgraduate educations; its visitors also tend to consist of less affluent, childless men between the ages of 35 and 65 who browse from home.
The Irish Presidential Election 2011 Web Archive collection consists of 70 archived websites relating to the Presidential Election of 2011. Selected websites can be broken down as follows:
A one off snapshort of 70 websites was taken in the two weeks prior to the election date of 27th Oct 2011, with a further 10 sites (such as that of the newly elected president) being archived after the election as well.
Given that we are in Fiscal Compact mode here on the site, I thought I’d make a point about industrial production in Ireland. Today’s monthly release of the Census of Industrial Production (.pdf) shows up a few interesting features of the Irish economy. The CSO report that the seasonally adjusted volume of industrial production for Manufacturing Industries for the first quarter of 2012 was 5.2% lower than the preceding quarter, but the seasonally adjusted industrial turnover index for Manufacturing Industries increased by 3.2% in March 2012 when compared with February 2012 and actually increased on an annual basis.
I thought I might dig into this a little. The chart below shows monthly data from 2007 on industrial production for the ‘modern’ sectors of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, recording media, and medical devices, and individually the key exporting pharmaceutical and chemical sectors. Seasonally adjusted and indexed to 2005, then, we have the following:
Which shows that, for these key sectors on a seasonally adjusted basis there has been a marked drop since the end of last year. Before we all go shorting Ireland just yet though, to put these figures in a bit more context, here’s the same series averaged annually, with the last period averaged quarterly for 2012.
There’s still a decline, but it’s not quite the patent cliff Frank Barry has been highlighting recently. Definitely a series to watch however. Here’s the turnover statistics for the two chemical sectors, they don’t produce one for the modern sector:
We can clearly see more of a drop , but it’s a bit too soon to tell where this series is headed. Again, one to watch.