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THE ERA of Ireland’s annual Budgets being announced in December has come one step closer to ending, after a European deal reached this morning.
Representatives from the Council of the EU – currently chaired by Ireland, under its presidency – reached an agreement with the European Parliament and European Commission about the introduction of a series of financial governance measures known as the ‘two-pack’.
The regulations include one programme of special measures for countries in an ‘excessive deficit procedure’ – the EU’s programme of financial adjustments for countries with large budget deficits – and another for countries participating in bailouts.
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Among the proposals in the two-pack is the idea that every member state would submit its Budget to the European Commission for its scrutiny in October every year, to ensure that it meets the conditions of the Stability and Growth Pact from 1999.
Michael Noonan has previously said that this will mean Ireland will either have to formulate a draft Budget in October, to be sent to the Commission in Brussels for its oversight, or bring forward the Budget entirely.
He has suggested that the Irish political culture means a draft Budget would not withstand two months of attack from lobby groups, and commented that bringing forward the Budget to October would appear a more sensible option.
Countries which do not propose Budgets in keeping with their obligations would face a veto from the European Commission, and in some cases could lose their funding under European social and cohesion funds.
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Our overlords have spoken. It’s sad to see the intrusion on our sovereignty. Our government will be left with powers similar to county councils if the EU continues down this path unhindered.
In reality we didn’t have a budget in December 2012, what we had was a brief outline of some measures, crafted to appease the public and build consumer confidence in the run up to Christmas; the devil in the detail has been slowly drip fed to us since Jan 1 2013, with plenty more pain to come.
He has suggested that the Irish political culture means a draft Budget would not withstand two months of attack from lobby groups, and commented that bringing forward the Budget to October would appear a more sensible option.
Suggests to me that europe are in control as his reasoning for bringing it forward is related to lobby groups and not the fact that the rest of europe would know 2 months before we would.
he worries me
“A draft budget could not withstand two months of lobbying”???? Does he not really mean: “for God’s sake, they’re never going to believe our bullshit for two whole months till we can legally enforce it! “????
maybe Irish budget will be openly discussed and debated by national parliament from on like a real democracy instead of total secrecy by minister of finance with secret lobbying. good to see some supervision at EU level too but must have democratic oversight of EU parliament. we are all in same eurozone boat now
‘special measures’ for those countries in “excessive deficit procedures’ and another schedule for ‘countries in bailout programs’ ……….. jaysus those Teutons just can’t hide their obsession with classification…… I hope they are easier on us.
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