Great opportunities for Ireland

hmmm

There's too much doom and gloom around. Some of what has emerged over the past 2 days presents great opportunities for Ireland, partly due to the unexpected gift of Cameron sidelining the UK in Europe.

1. The obvious. If we require a referendum, the hope is that we can negotiate some sort of discount on our debt as an incentive. Most likely a longer repayment schedule at a low interest rate.

2. The not so obvious. Closer integration in the Eurozone will potentially see a loss of influence for the City of London as an EU based financial centre. The Eurozone countries are not going to impose a Tobin tax on their financial centres and then allow the City to out-compete by opting out, I forsee an attempt to ensure that transactions within the Eurozone stay in the Eurozone. While much of this will benefit Frankfurt, step up the main English speaking financial centre in the Eurozone, the IFSC.

3. We compete with Britain for much of our foreign direct investment (FDI). What company is going to invest in a Britain that has negligible influence in Europe and potentially is heading towards a referendum on leaving the EU? Influence in Europe is about soft power, in particular the ability to influence the development of new legislation. Again roll up the English speaking, business friendly location with a proven track record - ourselves.

The worst possible scenario I could see however is us following Britain into obscurity. In that scenario, the best thing we could do is adopt Sterling and accept our new place as a poor region of the UK.

liammur

hmmm wrote: »

There's too much doom and gloom around. Some of what has emerged over the past 2 days presents great opportunities for Ireland, partly due to the unexpected gift of Cameron sidelining the UK in Europe.

1. The obvious. If we require a referendum, the hope is that we can negotiate some sort of discount on our debt as an incentive. Most likely a longer repayment schedule at a low interest rate.

2. The not so obvious. Closer integration in the Eurozone will potentially see a loss of influence for the City of London as an EU based financial centre. The Eurozone countries are not going to impose a Tobin tax on their financial centres and then allow the City to out-compete by opting out, I forsee an attempt to ensure that transactions within the Eurozone stay in the Eurozone. While much of this will benefit Frankfurt, step up the main English speaking financial centre in the Eurozone, the IFSC.

3. We compete with Britain for much of our foreign direct investment (FDI). What company is going to invest in a Britain that has negligible influence in Europe and potentially is heading towards a referendum on leaving the EU? Influence in Europe is about soft power, in particular the ability to influence the development of new legislation. Again roll up the English speaking, business friendly location with a proven track record - ourselves.

The worst possible scenario I could see however is us following Britain into obscurity. In that scenario, the best thing we could do is adopt Sterling and accept our new place as a poor region of the UK.

I agree there is too much doom and gloom around, but that's all I agree with in the above post.

Xenophile

hmmm wrote: »

There's too much doom and gloom around. Some of what has emerged over the past 2 days presents great opportunities for Ireland, partly due to the unexpected gift of Cameron sidelining the UK in Europe.

1. The obvious. If we require a referendum, the hope is that we can negotiate some sort of discount on our debt as an incentive. Most likely a longer repayment schedule at a low interest rate.

2. The not so obvious. Closer integration in the Eurozone will potentially see a loss of influence for the City of London as an EU based financial centre. The Eurozone countries are not going to impose a Tobin tax on their financial centres and then allow the City to out-compete by opting out, I forsee an attempt to ensure that transactions within the Eurozone stay in the Eurozone. While much of this will benefit Frankfurt, step up the main English speaking financial centre in the Eurozone, the IFSC.

3. We compete with Britain for much of our foreign direct investment (FDI). What company is going to invest in a Britain that has negligible influence in Europe and potentially is heading towards a referendum on leaving the EU? Influence in Europe is about soft power, in particular the ability to influence the development of new legislation. Again roll up the English speaking, business friendly location with a proven track record - ourselves.

The worst possible scenario I could see however is us following Britain into obscurity. In that scenario, the best thing we could do is adopt Sterling and accept our new place as a poor region of the UK.

liammur wrote: »

I agree there is too much doom and gloom around, but that's all I agree with in the above post.

The original poster deserves a better response than just quoting his first sentence and then throwing in a short negative one liner. I would suggest that you substantiate your statement by giving the reasons for refuting his contentions.

skafish

Great thinking. I agree with what you are saying, And it will suit us even more if the UK do leave the EU, with Ireland as the only offshore english speaking element left in the EU.
There is a danger, however, that because of the balance of trade between ourselves and the UK, and ourselves and the UK puppetmaster (USIsrael), we could find ourselves in caught between the 2.
We are still at the cusp of an amazing opertunity, though

Dirk Gently

Frankly I dont think the EU are too bothered about what Ireland does. They probably want us on board but I cant see them being too interested in giving us concessions or pleading with us if we start making demands. The continent will get along fine without our little island. I wouldn't be too interested in generating a massive financial sector here either. Let the city deregulate further and grow its financial sector more if they want, I'll take fiscal responsibility and a small regulated IFSC over that.

liammur

Dirk Gently wrote: »

Frankly I dont think the EU are too bothered about what Ireland does. They probably want us on board but I cant see them being too interested in giving us concessions or pleading with us if we start making demands. The continent will get along fine without our little island. I wouldn't be too interested in generating a massive financial sector here either. Let the city deregulate further and grow its financial sector more if they want, I'll take fiscal responsibility and a small regulated IFSC over that.

I agree. The German taxpayer got stung to the tune of over €100 bln because of a bank operating out of the IFSC. It was pure luck that it wasn't the Irish taxpayer (Hypo took it over a year before the crisis). There will be very strict monitoring of financial institutions in Eurozone from here on in.

skafish

Dirk Gently wrote: »

Frankly I dont think the EU are too bothered about what Ireland does. They probably want us on board but I cant see them being too interested in giving us concessions or pleading with us if we start making demands. The continent will get along fine without our little island. I wouldn't be too interested in generating a massive financial sector here either. Let the city deregulate further and grow its financial sector more if they want, I'll take fiscal responsibility and a small regulated IFSC over that.

I don't agree.
Under international law, Ireland owns everything off our shores out to the edge of the continental shelf, except where there is an intersection (for example, between ourselves and Wales), where the division is half way between the two.
It is already known we have the richest fishing grounds in the world.
Now consider the fact that almost 50% of the Spanish economy is built on fish..... catching, processing and marketing.
The French economy is 25% built on fish.
These two countries alone catch the majority of their fish in what would be Irish exclusive waters if we were not part of the the EU, and that is before you consider the other major fishing nations... Holland, Belgium etc.
After that, think about the oil, gas and coal under our water, uneconomical to expliot at todays prices, but with improvements in technology, and increases in prices, it won't be much longer before it is viable to exploit all these resources.
And those are just the minerals we know about at the moment.
Last note: Norway applied to join the EEC in the 1980s, but when finally accepted, declined to join in 1986, as they realised they would loose exclusive access to their fish and submarine minerals.
For these reasons alone, the bigger economies in the EU don't want us to leave

hmmm

skafish wrote: »

Now consider the fact that almost 50% of the Spanish economy is built on fish..... catching, processing and marketing.
The French economy is 25% built on fish.

Please stop making up statistics. In the French case, the entire primary sector (fishing, farming etc) makes up no more than 5% of their economy.

None of us want to become fishermen, when will you begin to understand that "what about our fish?" is not an argument for leaving the EU or never joining in the first place.

screamer

We can either be an impoverished insignificant part of the UK, an insignificant impoverished part of the EU, either way we are impoverished and insignificant. The new integration will bring far more hardship for us than opportunities, this is for sure.

Good loser

screamer wrote: »

We can either be an impoverished insignificant part of the UK, an insignificant impoverished part of the EU, either way we are impoverished and insignificant. The new integration will bring far more hardship for us than opportunities, this is for sure.

Quite wrong there imo.

Our significance is our population and our wealth, such as they are.

Our power is proportionate to the sum of both regardless of the other powers we associate with.

Allying ourselves to a federation of states is better than a bilateral deal with Britain.

Tipp Man

Why is everybody so keen to join Sterling - ok maybe not keen but putting it out there as an alternative??

Sterling is in nearly as bad shape as EUR -they are just printing their way out of it. you'd swear Britian was a booming economy with no problems

Surely the whole point of leaving the EUR would be to have our own currency and control of it and use it as an instrument to manage the economy

wiseguy

How about this for our future

Companies leave en-masse as corporation tax is "harmonized", the IFSC companies leave+return to London.

The country resembles a modern day Albania as the only healthy parts of the economy are killed in order to get lower interest on debts ran up for public service, welfare and banks.

:cool:

srsly78

skafish wrote: »

I don't agree.
Under international law, Ireland owns everything off our shores out to the edge of the continental shelf, except where there is an intersection (for example, between ourselves and Wales), where the division is half way between the two.
It is already known we have the richest fishing grounds in the world.
Now consider the fact that almost 50% of the Spanish economy is built on fish..... catching, processing and marketing.
The French economy is 25% built on fish.
These two countries alone catch the majority of their fish in what would be Irish exclusive waters if we were not part of the the EU, and that is before you consider the other major fishing nations... Holland, Belgium etc.
After that, think about the oil, gas and coal under our water, uneconomical to expliot at todays prices, but with improvements in technology, and increases in prices, it won't be much longer before it is viable to exploit all these resources.
And those are just the minerals we know about at the moment.
Last note: Norway applied to join the EEC in the 1980s, but when finally accepted, declined to join in 1986, as they realised they would loose exclusive access to their fish and submarine minerals.
For these reasons alone, the bigger economies in the EU don't want us to leave

DEY TUK AWR FISH! (and the oil we haven't pumped yet)

pog it

I believe this is a decision Cameron has made with the long-term in mind- perhaps he wants the UK to have more of a dominant role in the new EU federal union and who knows what he knows as regards what will happen re. upcoming crises: currency and economy. He's in a better position to know than any of us. Also, he is representing the UK and people there are mostly happy with his decision.

What has he got to lose?