As far as I can tell, Reuters are the only source for this story. After the travesty of their report on the Pope’s alleged “anti-gay = saving the rainforest” speech, alarm bells are ringing.
Does anyone have a link to the full text of his speech?
I note that Reuters make a link between Steinbrueck’s reference to Ireland and a comment made a
where he says two apparently very different things:
firstly, he makes the orthodox point that
He is then quoted as saying
Taking this at face value, he seems to be saying, not that Germany would help Ireland but that the Eurozone countries collectively “would have to help”. What form of help is not clear but it may not involve financial transfers. It could be e.g. an expression of political support or solidarity. There might be some leeway on State Aids or relaxation of the Stability Pact.
Frankly, I doubt if Steinbrueck is taking out a chequebook.
An EU bailout, would this mean an opportunity to sweep our problems under the carpet? I really don’t think this is any kind of a solution. We need to do some major house cleaning and the only way this might be a possibility is if no one comes to our aid.
Gunther, thanks for the €20 billion in structural funds and the €1.5 billion a year in CAP payments, but lookit we have a small problem with de economy. It was mostly your fault for investing in toxic American subprime mortgages, but you’ll be glad to hear I’m not going to point fingers.
Now I’ve thought about this and I’m sure you’ll agree that the best solution would be for you to give us another €20 billion to bail out our fine banking sector and then we can all get back to being good Europeans again.
And sure you know we were only joking when we voted no to Lisbon last year. We love the EU money, I mean the EU.
We have shown ourselves to have a corrupt incompetent political elite
Letting the EU have a bigger say in how the country is run is a bad thing.
At this stage, Id be delighted if the Germans came in and took over for a while. While they are at it, they might build re education camps for out thick apathetic mucksavage electorate.
Ah! common misconception there.
What Kresident Kennedy actually said, as he hopped up to the microphone dressed from head to foot in a black plastic bag was
“Ich bin ein Binliner”…
I firmly believe the sausage reference was a purely fruedian slip on Kennedys behalf.
Meanwhile back OT. I believe that at some stage the EU will have to do something about Ireland because although we are only 1% of the Euro we are spinning out of control enough to do some serious damage to the whole thing. After the Irish excesses of the last decade they won’t like doing it and will look to extract their pound of flesh while stabilising the whole sorry mess. If this could happen while the scumbags who caused this mess are still in government all the better.
The EU’s problem at the moment is that every country has got problems and the scale of the problems in some of the other countries e.g. Spain, Greece and Hungry is greater than Irelands - yet. So far we are being let muddle through because although we are out of our depth we are still treading water and could possibly make it back to safety on our own if we make the right descisions. Greece and Hungry are running out of options faster than Ireland and they will need help sooner than us.
Lets hope so, I cant see there being much appetite within the EU to bail out the best paid central bankers, quangos and politicians in the world without some enforcement. The quicker it happens the better.