EU Needs Ireland As Much As Ireland Needs EU

As the euro zone crisis rages on, Ireland has become a powerful symbol of exhortation — a kind of inverted cautionary tale — used by the currency union’s fiscal hawks. "Cut public spending, reform your economy, and you, like Ireland, can survive financial crisis and come out the other side," runs their exhortation.

目前，爱尔兰的公共财政目前由欧盟，欧洲中央银行和国际货币基金组织根据明年收盘期结束的救助计划，但肯定远离无望的事业。

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, recently affirmed that Ireland has achieved “remarkable, very significant, substantial progress” in fiscal consolidation and other areas and that the point at which the country could once again finance its debt in the free market was “not a far distant perspective.” Anxious to test the waters ahead of full fiscal independence from the troika, on Thursday Ireland made a tentative but successful foray into the bond market, selling a chunky €4.2 billion ($5.1 billion) in long-term debt for the first time since it was forced out of the market in 2010. However, the rate for the 5-year tranche of the sale, at 5.9 percent, suggests that Ireland’s future financing would be expensive.

Is it too soon to declare Ireland’s fiscal crisis over?

The country has certainly come a long way. In 2009 its economy shrank by 7 percent, causing its fiscal deficit to swell to 14.2 percent of gross domestic product. In 2010 the deficit ballooned to 31.3 percent, almost three times as much as any leading economy. But this year it will ease to under 9 percent, according to the IMF, after severe cuts to public services. As a result, although GDP fell quarter-on-quarter in the first quarter, it was still 1.2 percent up on the year.

But there is still a fair-sized mountain to climb to get the deficit down to a sustainable level at which bond payments can be met and investors will not panic at the prospect that they might not be. Credibility would be established by a deficit of no more than around 3 percent. A deficit of this size is the maximum allowed for each member state by the EU’s Stability and Growth Pact in the (relatively) halcyon days of 1997. It is also Ireland’s target for 2015.

To achieve this, Ireland will need to grow its economy despite the tail winds generated by the euro zone’s economic crisis, and to make further cuts in spending. How achievable is this?

爱尔兰最大的优势之一是其高水平的出口。欧洲的政治领导人敦促他们的同胞帮助他们的国家出口经济莫拉斯的方式;在爱尔兰，这一命题至少比其他地方更具宗旨。总出口大致相当于经济的总体规模 - 而他们只占希腊的五分之一的GDP。此外，这些出口中的许多出口都在陷入困境的欧元区之外，减少了欧元区国家依赖出口到其他会员国的经济增长的常用指责的权力就像彼此相连的17名溺水的水手为了安全到海底的途中。2011年，24％的爱尔兰出口是美国，16％的是英国。他们正在享受14％同比下降的邮风，欧元兑美元至1.24美元，英镑兑美元增长12％至1.27欧元。

爱尔兰is also exporting its people in large numbers once more, as it has done periodically throughout its history when the outlook at home has darkened. More than 250,000 Irish people have emigrated since its economic crisis began — a high number for a country of 4.6 million inhabitants. This should ease Ireland’s deficit by cutting the value of out-of-work benefit payments, though the departure of often highly skilled young people at the beginning of their working lives could hit economic growth in the very long term.

Moreover, those Irish in work have a high reputation which should boost foreign direct investment, particularly since 2011 figures for Ireland’s hourly labor costs — at €27.4 — show a fall back down to below the euro zone average according to Eurostat, the EU’s statistical arm.

In the 2012 World Competitiveness Yearbook published by IMD, the Swiss business school, Ireland comes top in the availability of skilled labor and in the flexibility and adaptability of the workforce.

伦敦·伦敦·佛索教的首席经济学家John Greenwood表示，爱尔兰有一个非常灵活的劳动力市场：“工资和价格一直很调节，我们也看到了相当多的移民。”

但是，一些优势比首次出现的强度更受限;其他人是弱点的拐杖。

爱尔兰’s reliance on the U.S. and U.K. for such a high proportion of its exports still leaves it exposed to the euro zone crisis, because the U.S. and U.K. are themselves vulnerable to it. Troubles in the currency union have pushed the U.K. into recession.

High emigration has not been enough to prevent a rise in unemployment from 5 percent to 15 percent. This number explains why Ireland scored top for availability of skilled labor in the IMD survey and why its labor costs have fallen relative to other countries. However, it is one big reason why Ireland will find it hard to push its deficit down by another 5 percentage points to around 3 percent.

In a July report on Ireland, the IMF frets over “the growing problem of long-term unemployment,” and calls for benefit reforms to increase incentives to work. It also warns that when it comes to cutting public spending, “after five years of consolidation, few low-hanging fruit remain.” Many members of the Irish public have for many years vigorously opposed the cuts, which include reductions in welfare and civil servants’ salaries. The need to cut even more deeply could make future protests still more vehement, to the point where, as in Greece, they start seriously to disrupt the economy.

替代方案 - 越来越依赖筹集收入 - 甚至可能更加困难。几乎一半的爱尔兰家庭失败（或拒绝），以满足4月截止日期，以支付新的100欧元财产税：公众在几年紧缩后疲惫不堪。政治批评人士指出，很大类似的税收在1990年落后于1990年玛格丽特·撒切尔，爱尔兰较大的邻居王子。爱尔兰的公民不服从征收可能会在爱尔兰人民对紧缩的抵抗力中标志着一个新的和更直接的激进阶段。

因此，爱尔兰面临着与西班牙和希腊相同的危险问题：它的人民和经济已经从严重的削减中大大遭受了大量遭受，但如果他们想要建立允许他们留下的财政信誉，需要更加牺牲更加牺牲欧元区。爱尔兰的任务将是实现平衡行为，使得削减足够深度以减少赤字，但并不是那么深处，他们摧毁了经济。它尚不清楚 - 爱尔兰和任何其他陷入困境的外围欧元区国家 - 无论金融体操运动员有多熟练，都有疲惫的外围欧洲欧洲欧洲州的国家是数学可能的。

然而，爱尔兰的储蓄恩典可能是它的体积小。这使得在数学术语中，对于欧元区的整体来说，欧元区相对容易找到拯救国家的资金 - 例如，通过使用紧急债券购买，保证爱尔兰债券价格的地板，因为该国出口保护恢复病房救助。坚持认为，爱尔兰需要吞咽苛刻的药物，欧元区不能让其他成员国看到它杀死患者 - 这将破坏紧缩信息的可信度，这是跨国债务危机的跨国反应的跨国回应的信誉。因此，欧元区可能会诱惑，利用其加剧的融资机制给爱尔兰一些关键的余地。