€6 billion is heavy price to keep Germans happy

The Chairman of County Wexford Sinn Féin has described the estimated cost of Ireland changing deficit rules as outlined in the fiscal compact treaty as a heavy price to pay to keep the German government happy. Oisin O’ Connell said the figure of €6 billion being quoted by several economists was both a realistic and terrifying indication of how this treaty may impact negatively on Ireland in the years to come if ratified by referendum on the 31st of May next.

Mr O’ Connell said;

“The figure of €6 billion being suggested by some economists is not an outlandish prediction or some sort of scare tactic, but a very legitimate calculation of how much this state will be immediately penalised for accepting a new deficit rule under the terms of the fiscal compact treaty. It is now accepted that if the government manages to carry out the Troikas demand and get our government deficit down to 3% for 2015, then the switch over to a 0.5% structural deficit rule would cost the state €6 billion. That’s an additional €6 billion after years of austerity budgets.”

“We have heard government spokespeople consistently telling us that austerity ends in 2015. This treaty removes any doubt that these people could have been telling the truth. This treaty will introduce a string of measures aimed at permanently institutionalising austerity, meaning it will never end. Unfortunately this €6 billion is only the start of a new never ending debt.”

“Accepting this treaty and the permanent austerity that it seeks to attach to our constitution seems a heavy price to pay to keep elements of the German parliament happy. Since the start of the Euro crisis these Germans have reinvented themselves as the moral guardians of the ‘core’ EU nations, keen to inflict economic governance on the weaker periphery member states. They spin the myth that it was the reckless borrowing and spending of peripheral nations like Ireland that caused the crisis.”

“They rarely mention how European banks lost €200 billion speculating on the American subprime mortgage market during the 2008 Wall Street Crash, or the devastating knock on effect that these gambling losses have had on the euro currency. They have created an entirely false history of this crisis. Introducing economic governance from Germany and permanent austerity in Ireland won’t save the euro zone. In fact it will further endanger it. €6 billion is a heavy price to pay to keep the German government happy but it is not as heavy as signing up generations of Irish people to a permanent hardship treaty.”