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IRELAND WILL NEED to share debt with other European member states in order to boost and improve the competitiveness of the EU single market, an expert report has recommended.
The report was written by ex-Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, under the direction of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and explores methods the EU can compete with other markets, such as the US and China, in the coming years.
Draghi, who previously served as the President of the European Central Bank, claimed that member states can no longer “ignore” competitiveness and added that, he believes, the EU is in a “weakening position” in the global trade market.
Additionally, the report recommends, member states’ Governments should not be able to use their veto when entering into joint-financing schemes, such as ‘Eurobonds’.
Common borrowing schemes are joint ventures between Governments within the EU that will borrow money together and take on the debt as a Union.
Titled “The future of European competitiveness“, the report outlines how the EU can do better than the current situation to compete in industries such as energy, technology, computing, defence, space, pharma and transport.
The recommendations outline a step-by-step plan on how member states can reduce barriers to growth in these sectors, futureproof the single market, and what steps can be made immediately under existing plans, such as the Green and Digital Transitions.
Draghi takes issue with some regulatory measures in these sectors, namely in tech, and claims that they currently hinder the growth of these industries within the EU. He reasons that more needs to be done to better improve their expansion by member states.
During a press conference today, the former Italian leader said he believes that the EU’s existing view of the future competitiveness of the bloc “lacks focus” and painted a grim image of Europe’s place in the global markets.
The headline recommendation from the report is that, in order to fund improvements, EU member states need to agree to enter common borrowing and joint debt schemes for common infrastructure.
Stopping member states from vetoing these schemes will ensure that the plan is properly financed and that individual countries cannot “delay or dilute” measures to strengthen the EU’s single market so it can keep up with competitors, Draghi reasons.
Common borrowing and joint-public funding for European projects is “instrumental” to the plan, according to Draghi, and has “several positive aspects” including simultaneously strengthening the single market and member states’ economies.
These schemes are, in short, joint-financing projects where individual Governments inject public funds into European projects, borrow funds together and take on the debt as a union rather than a single entity.
Nicknamed ‘Eurobonds’, common borrowing schemes have previously been supported by Ireland but has been met with some push back, from countries such as France and Germany.
Concerns about the plan are mainly to do with the risk that some members states, with strong economies, will end up paying more for common debt schemes when entering joint-financing projects with countries with weaker economies.
Speaking in Brussels today, however, Draghi reasoned that a number of steps and decisions would need to take place before European member states would need to decide whether or not to join a Eurobond scheme.
“It all depends on the plan,” Draghi said. “Whether we need to take the action, if we are going to take the action, and how to finance that. Then it’s [working out] how much of it will be privately financed and how much is publicly financed.”
Draghi agreed that increased private finances used to build essential infrastructure, such as energy grids, would have the same effect on the European single market as joint-borrowing schemes.
He added: “But there are projects, such as [energy] grids, where private money is not enough and the case for public money becomes pretty urgent.”
So far, the Eurobonds idea was used in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic as a measure to strengthen the single market at a time of increased volatility.
Ireland has opted in to similar schemes before, but has been hesitant to join common-defence spending schemes, due to its militarily neutral stance. It is unclear, at this time, what impact the blocking of vetos for such schemes would have on Ireland’s position.
Today’s report, along with a previous report written by another former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, was commissioned by von der Leyen and likely signals the direction the Commission President wants to take in terms of financial security of the EU during the next term.
Fianna Fáil MEP for Ireland South Billy Kelleher, and member of the European Parliament’s economic affairs committee, said that today’s report should be a “wake up call for the European Commission and all Member States to get their act together”.
Kelleher welcomed plans in the report to support smaller businesses and to jointly procure and finance European resources. “Fundamentally, we must pool our resources, pool our skills, and pool our potential,” he said.
“Our continent is at a crossroads: the choice is between investment and simplification to build a new economy, or stagnation and retrenchment,” Kelleher added.
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The ability to change property tax + or – 15%…guess which one
A smart county will lower the tax to encourage inward investment and property purchases.
….. or……. they will all raise the tax together….
Wonder which it will be.
Depends who you vote for then, doesn’t it? If you don’t like a councillor’s decision on the matter then you vote them out. As these are local elections, it’ll be much easier to hold them accountable for broken promises than TDs. Similarly, people are more likely to vote for independent candidates or take a chance on candidates in local elections which again would increase accountability and choice for people.
OK I agree with this in principle but am concerned that the already top-heavy local council hierarchy will remain with highly paid local council employees being shuffled around instead of being made redundant. Can’t upset the unions can we Phil ?
I’d tend to agree that we need to see exactly what sort of reductions this means from a staff level perspective, especially in those merged councils. Surely there are opportunities for reductions there.
they can be redeployed anywhere within the public sector so if the dept of education or social protection is in need of people, they can go work there instead.
That’s fine Sandra and if people can be gainfully employed elsewhere that would be brilliant. The key word here is “gainfully”. I have seen so many times, public servants sitting on their hands waiting for retirement in a “job” of which they have no knowledge or interest. I feel sorry for them but at the same time, it’s a complete and utter waste of taxpayers money – money that could be used elsewhere much more effectively.
It’s still based on the old idea of counties. This tribalism is not good for the country. I don’t see why we can’t just scrap counties altogether and come up with a system that balances population with geography. We’ll still support the counties in the GAA, but why do we have, for example, one administrative unit in Leitrim representing 30,000, one in Meath representing 180,000 and 2 in Cork representing 480,000?
It’s an archaic system Brian. While these changes are welcome in my opinion, I wish some politician had the balls to tackle it more extensively.
don’t forget we also have a town council for for every little town with more than one pub…
Alien8, this bill will abolish those town councils. As for councils based on county boundaries; that’s a fair point but I think the size of the council reflects the population discrepancies with bigger councils for bigger population spreads.
That’s true ignoreland. However, if you take a look at my home county of Meath. Laytown, Bettystown and Mornington are part of Meath. They would be better served under an administration run from Drogheda. Likewise, Clonee would be better served along with Blanchardstown and Mulhuddart. Where I currently live, Sligo, Manorhamilton is served by Carrick on Shannon, despite the fact you have to leave Leitrim to get from one to the other. Manorhamilton would be better served from Sligo. The counties were established as districts for military and taxation purposes. We need new districts based on geographic, demographic and economic reasons and to cut down on duplication and administration.
I don’t think you can ever complain about having to leave Leitrim. Ever.
Fair point, Brian!
Merging Limerick councils is an absolutely brilliant idea. Having two up to this point has contributed hugely to the decline in the city centre as the county council kept allowing big retail parks just over the city border
The lack of business has nothing to do with the cost and availability of parking which would be under the remit of the city council? Nothing to do with the fact that the few free places to park around the city are dwindling as the council mark them with lines and hire more tax gatherers/traffic wardens? There are many reasons to merge Limerick councils but this is hardly one of them.
While these are welcome steps, 31 one local authorities is still way too many in a small country. We could probably survive quite well with about 15. Every county does not need it’s own council.
More tax hikes on the way Phil ???
The Bull Hogan should put the road tax on to the fuel, But no lets make it hugely complicated and do it that way instead.
And not one single person will lose their job.
Alot of Councillors tend to be close to the retirement age and would be going anyway… just not being replaced this time round is where the numbers will be saved.
A lot of councillors will lose their positions, for most of them it’s not a full time job anyway.
I hope the urban councillors take a case against this erosion of our local democracy. I get the feeling that the FG leadership would like to run the country as a dictatorship rather than a democracy!
This is one if the few good proposals brought forward by this administration.it should lead to a streamlining of local govt. There are town councils for towns of 250 people or less in some cases which is just ridiculous and costly. One county council is enough in most cases. People keep saying we have too many politicians and yet when they propose to reduce the number, it’s an erosion of democracy?
Whats the betting these useless so called local public servants that will get their walking papers wont also walk away with a huge pay off and pensions,all paid for on the backs of the taxpayers
this is probably what will happen! it happened before! A sense of entitlement!
This sounds like one of the worst idea’s Ive ever heard. What is with this government and thinking that giving more work to less people makes things “More efficient”?? It DIDNT work with SUSI, and it wont work here. All this sounds like is another scheme to save money, by taking away peoples town councils. STOP harassing us.
It will work with SUSI. Having multiple authorities duplicating loads of things is very inefficient. Student grants is one example and water is another. The setup of the driver licence agency is another welcome improvement. Having multiple councils all doing these things is madness. We don’t do change well in Ireland generally.
114 councils in a country of 4.6 million is your idea of efficient? Really? OK, some people don’t like the government but this is a good move. It will save the tax payers money and will make local authority more accountable.
In France they have 36,500 communes with local government!
And do you think Irish people would be happy with French tax rates to fund that level of bureaucracy Francis? They have two levels of property taxes as far as I know.
…and the last time France posted a national budget surplus was in 1972!
Mike, take the apostrophe from “idea’s” and stick it after the I in “Ive” please. There are other apostrophe gaffes, btw.
There needs to be a major review of current council staffing levels. I have heard from several council office workers that they can’t be sacked and all the pay cuts dealt out to the public service have been cancelled out by their automatic increments in pay every year which are NOT performance related. There can’t be immunity to redundancy in cases of poor performance. Haddington Road forced a few extra hours onto these people which is pointless if the quality isn’t there. Merging inefficient councils just makes a bigger inefficient council. No change
I thought this bill was already in place!
Better late than never I suppose.
More pain from the minister for “couldn’t give a shite about people”
What pain exactly?
Dermot – please don’t ask for facts. Some people just want to moan!
@ Jim walsh and Dermot Lane. If your too thick to figure it out then let me fill you in, hogan is the same Bo***x whos bringing in water meters and the household tax, probably the minister who is implementing more hardship on his own that any other minister, so i reserve the right to “Moan” as you call it, i didnt vote the P***k in so i have every right to dislike what he stands for.
Yes john but don’t let your hatred of the man stop you from recognising that this is a good proposal which if done properly will save millions for the taxpayers. Or would you prefer we continue to waste this money just because it’s Hogan proposing it? The only pain felt here will be felt by the politicians who will lose their place on the councils and that can’t be a bad thing.
My guess is that the populace would reject this proposed legislation if it were put before them as a Referendum. Let us recall that the Referendum on the right of the Oireachtas to hold Enquiries was rejected out of pure spite and the recent Referendum on the abolition of the Seanad which would have removed sixty simpering and costly Senators was also lost.
This proposal on Local Government is a wonderful start on Political reform and if I have a criticism it would be about it not going far enough!
It’s called democracy mr dickie
Martin
Pray tell me what is it that we call democracy? If you read my contribution I simply made an observation on the decisions of the electorate in two recent Referenda! Why have you inferred that I have some difficulty in understanding that this was democracy? Pray tell.
I hope the urban councillors take a case against this erosion of our local democracy. I get the feeling that FG would rather we were a dictatorship than a democracy!
‘There will be a devolving powers to local authorities’ – sloppy writing.
While I welcome these proposal I think we could have gone a lot further. We will still have over 900 local councillors.
To be honest I think Ireland could do with around 9-10 regional authorities of around 40-50 members each. They could be setup to have roughly similar population level although Dublin would probably still have a greater size than the rest of them so it might still have to be split in some way. This would reduce the inequality in sizing as currently exists within the county council system. It would also give the councils a wider brief rather than their own narrow county interest.
Finally as time goes by more power could be devolved to the authorities which would allow our national TDs not to operate as super-county councillors and let them concentrate on truly national matters.
In fact we’ve had 8 Regional Authorities (Midlands, South-East etc.) for almost 20 years (bit smaller in size of membership than those you suggest Jim) but they’ve had what few powers they were given to coordinate public services, planning and EU support eroded to a bare minimum. Now they’ve been abolished.
Why are people – notably the media – simplistically obsessing about the reduction in the numbers of Councillors instead of the key issue of devolved power versus centralisation. Virtually since independence, our version of local government (actually ”local administration” is the more correct term in our case) has been the weakest and most limited system in Europe (which is quite a feat considering that we’ve recently heard that our Parliament is also the weakest). Addressing this issue and exotic notions such as good governance, accountability, providing the basis for bottom-up economic and community development etc. in order to properly represent the views and serve the needs of local communities is how this ”radical reform” will ultimately be judged.
Something seriously needs to be done with North Tipperary. The County Manager and the Elected Councillors and in particular the Planning Department are an absolute joke.
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