The Treaty and Ireland
STABILITY
The Stability Treaty is an international agreement between twenty-five European countries, including Ireland and all the other countries that use the euro.
It brings in stronger rules to ensure that countries keep their debts under control and balance their budgets. Governments will no longer be allowed to spend way more than they raise.
FUTURE FUNDING
Ireland will be in an EU/IMF Programme until 2013. After that, the aim is to go back to the money markets, as is the norm.
If we really needed it, we could get financial assistance from the new permanent rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism. It’s only available to countries which ratify the Treaty.
HELPING TO PREVENT FUTURE CRISES
The Stability Treaty is part of a package aimed at helping economic recovery and to prevent a repeat of the economic and financial crisis we’ve had in Ireland and Europe in recent years. This includes measures aimed at stability, improved coordination and governance.
Ireland needs to have better fiscal rules and institutions to stop this ever happening again; the Treaty provides a common framework for all countries which ratify this Treaty, including Eurozone members.
There is additional work being done in setting up common EU rules for regulating banks and dealing with bank failures, in building up firewalls to protect countries pursuing sound economic policies and in supporting countries suffering from economic shocks.
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