The morning after

Regardless of one’s views on the fiscal treaty, this post-referendum analysis by my UCD colleague Andy Storey is a sobering reminder that a treaty focused on government debt is unlikely to resolve a crisis sparked principally by irresponsible lending and borrowing by private banks. On the other hand, bond markets (and German taxpayers & parliamentarians) are now hyper-sensitive to government debt across Europe, so regardless of the sources of the current crisis, it is unrealistic to expect that Europe will ever return to the days when governments could borrow funds as if they all had globally competitive economies and sustainable budgets.