The Commission’s proposals for the EU budget’s next Financial Framework (MFF) for 2014-2020 can be found here. Judged against the parameters I proposed to evaluate the MFF proposal from an Irish perspective, then the proposal is as good as we could have hoped for. RTE reported that “The Government has given a cautious response to the European Commission’s proposed 2014 to 2020 budget” which, given that this is the start of a difficult set of negotiations, is about as close to saying “we are delighted” as you are likely to get.
Category: Fiscal Policy
On Wednesday (June 29th) the Commission is scheduled to reveal its proposals for the next Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) which will set out the scale and composition as well as the proposed financing of the EU budget over the period to 2020. However, some reports suggest that Commission President Barroso is putting aside two days for the Commission College to agree the proposal so it may be later in the week before it sees the light of day. This is an important issue for Ireland, and this post discusses the issues to watch for in the Commission’s proposal.
The Department of Finance is consulting on the potential economic impacts of amending property tax reliefs.
A paper and a spreadsheet model are available from www.finance.gov.ie.
Here.
Commenter Gavin Kostick has done impressive work on our behalf following up with Paul Krugman and Jean Claude Trichet on the austerity debate. The fruits of his efforts are contained on the Paul Krugman: When Austerity Fails thread, but many readers will probably have missed them on this fast moving blog.
The reply from the ECB and links provided by Paul Krugman are reproduced after the break. Thanks Gavin. (I also take back my dig from yesterday about the ECB’s poor communications.)