Financial Times: “Germany & France have no business pinning Ireland to floor when Irish taxpayers are picking up the colossal bill for European banks”

From a Financial Times editorial – ‘Bully Beef’ Europe:

This represents a dishonourable attempt to exploit the eurozone’s debt crisis as a means of bullying Ireland into policies that, so it is hoped in Berlin and Paris, will stem leakage from their own tax systems.

The strong-arm tactics are inappropriate, not to say foolish…

…an assurance that tax policy is a matter for EU member-states to decide for themselves was one of the cast-iron guarantees given to Ireland before it held a referendum on the bloc’s Lisbon treaty in October 2009. It played no small part in bringing about the Yes vote that reversed the verdict of an earlier referendum in June 2008. Were Ireland to be forced into raising corporation tax, against the will of all major political parties and the overwhelming majority of public opinion, the damage to Irish-EU relations would be severe…

Germany and France have no business pinning Ireland to the floor when Irish taxpayers are picking up the colossal bill for the role European banks played in Ireland’s property and construction bubble. Raising corporation tax will not improve Ireland’s public finances. By contrast, cleaning up Europe’s banks might just help to solve the eurozone’s crisis.

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