So Now We Have Exited The Bailout....

Herrick

First off please forgive my ignorance on this subject, hence why I'm asking from more knowledgeable posters on the subject.

I remember reading about how we have lost all national sovereignty, taking orders from Berlin, having our budgets approved by the IMF and Germany, etc

Now that we have exited the bailout where do we stand essentially? Do we still require checks on our finances by the IMF or the EU members we borrowed from? Are our future budgets and budget cuts down to our own Government now or will there still be foreign powers having to check it over? Will we still be borrowing money from EU countries at all? Just wondering if the bailout exit only refers to the IMF?

Thanks

Scofflaw

Herrick wrote: »

First off please forgive my ignorance on this subject, hence why I'm asking from more knowledgeable posters on the subject.

I remember reading about how we have lost all national sovereignty, taking orders from Berlin, having our budgets approved by the IMF and Germany, etc

Now that we have exited the bailout where do we stand essentially? Do we still require checks on our finances by the IMF or the EU members we borrowed from? Are our future budgets and budget cuts down to our own Government now or will there still be foreign powers having to check it over? Will we still be borrowing money from EU countries at all? Just wondering if the bailout exit only refers to the IMF?

Thanks

OK, variously:

1. we're not actually out of the bailout yet. December 15th is the formal date, afaik.

2. we never "took orders" from Berlin. Strictly speaking, we never took orders from the troika either - we had to hit the agreed targets, but how we did it has been a negotiated outcome rather than troika diktats. And while the German Parliament saw our budgets (as part of the EFSF), there was no direct input from any other Member State - while Germany lent to us through the EFSF, it didn't sit on the troika. The EFSF was represented on the troika by the ECB.

3. we will have checkup visits from the troika while we still have bailout debts outstanding to the official lenders (IMF, EU, EFSF). However, these no longer involve negotiations on our budget:

But the nameless number crunchers won’t vanish entirely. Instead of four “review missions” every year there will be two. That will continue until Ireland has repaid 75% of its Troika borrowings.

http://www.rte.ie/blogs/business/2013/06/17/traces-of-troika-will-linger-long-after-bailout/

4. We won't continue to borrow from the EU/IMF/EFSF/ESM but from the markets as before the bailout. In fact, we have pretty much €25bn already on hand, and market rates are lower than before the crash, albeit still not as low as the bailout loans. The government have turned down a 'precautionary credit line' which would have put some billions at our disposal but required continued troika budget targets.

5. As we'll have exited the bailout 'programme', next year we'll become part of the 'European Semester' mechanism, which involves coordination of all eurozone national budgets in the hopes of ensuring eurozone stability. As such, our budget, like those of all the other eurozone members, will be up for scrutiny by all the other eurozone countries and the Commission.

The Semester is a bit complicated, but there's a handy diagram on the Council website:



The bits where all the Member States are involved are highlighted in green.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Herrick

That's great Scofflaw helped a bunch, thanks

johnnyskeleton

Also, regardless of the bailout, we still have to hit eu deficit targets of under 3% which is long overdue

hotbabe1992

The bailout is going ahead there is no argument about that.

But austerity will still be here long after the bailout

Thank fg and labour for all this austerity all very well and nessecary during our time paying off the imf/troika,but to continue austerity,doesnt benefit us,all the savings and trimming they get will go up into bumping up politicians pensions no doubt..

It wont go to the people.

Scofflaw

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

The bailout is going ahead there is no argument about that.

But austerity will still be here long after the bailout

Thank fg and labour for all this austerity all very well and nessecary during our time paying off the imf/troika,but to continue austerity,doesnt benefit us,all the savings and trimming they get will go up into bumping up politicians pensions no doubt..

It wont go to the people.

There's that five minute conversation again.

unimpressed,
Scofflaw

hotbabe1992

Im not here to impress anybody scoff..

Scofflaw

hotbabe1992 wrote: »

Im not here to impress anybody scoff..

Still, in a sense you have - the idea that the current government are responsible for the current austerity (such as it is) requires an impressive amount of forgetfulness.

They are responsible - within the terms of the agreements made with those who lent to us when the markets wouldn't - for implementation of the austerity necessary to repair the appalling hole left in the public finances by the preceding three governments.

That sort of amazing amnesia almost automatically condemns us to repeat the whole process.

regards,
Scofflaw

diana123

When tapes of conversations between senior executives at the failed Anglo Irish Bank at the height of the financial crisis in 2008 were leaked in June, Irish credibility as a true penitent among the five bailed-out euro-zone countries took a knock. At last month’s European summit Angela Merkel, the German chancellor who calls the shots in the 17-state currency block, expressed her contempt for the bankers’ conduct, which included crass anti-German sentiment.

But any fears that this unwelcome reminder of past sins and sinners might upset Ireland’s path to exit from the rescue programme have been short-lived. This week’s review by the troika – the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the IMF – concluded that Ireland should be able to leave on schedule by the end of 2013. That’s precisely three years after fiscal and banking woes forced the Irish to go cap in hand for €67 billion ($87 billion) of official loans from Europe and the IMF.

Source: http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/07/irish-bail-out-programme

[MOD]Article is from July. Please do not cut and paste entire articles without attribution. It's illegal[/MOD]

gaius c

Herrick wrote: »

First off please forgive my ignorance on this subject, hence why I'm asking from more knowledgeable posters on the subject.

I remember reading about how we have lost all national sovereignty, taking orders from Berlin, having our budgets approved by the IMF and Germany, etc

Now that we have exited the bailout where do we stand essentially? Do we still require checks on our finances by the IMF or the EU members we borrowed from? Are our future budgets and budget cuts down to our own Government now or will there still be foreign powers having to check it over? Will we still be borrowing money from EU countries at all? Just wondering if the bailout exit only refers to the IMF?

Thanks

It's quite simple. Draghi is keeping our banks alive with cheap/free ECB money. As long as we behave, that money keeps moving. We so much as frown, the taps are turned off.

Scofflaw

gaius c wrote: »

It's quite simple. Draghi is keeping our banks alive with cheap/free ECB money. As long as we behave, that money keeps moving. We so much as frown, the taps are turned off.

That seems a little too simple...there are, as far as I know, no conditions attached to the ECB's bank funding that bind the State. The banks' reliance on ECB funding is not only way down from its peak of €187bn, standing now at €41bn (which is, I think, about 6% of the Irish banks' funding), but more importantly is no longer short-term ELA or even standard main refinancing (MRO) funding, but is instead mostly the longer-term LTRO funding that was offered to all eurozone banks. I'm fairly sure there are no special conditions attached to that funding.

cordially,
Scofflaw