Ireland's
prime minister has told his party conference that Ireland will become the first
eurozone country to exit an international bailout in December. But he said
there is still a long way to go.
Prime
Minister Enda Kenny has told a gathering of his Fine Gael party in Dublin that
"the economic emergency will be over" when the country exits its
85-billion-euro (115 billion dollars) bailout on December 15.
"There's
still a long way to go. But at last, the era of the bailout will be no
more," Kenny said on Saturday. "Two years ago, I addressed the Irish
people and said that I wanted to be the taoiseach (prime minister) who would
retrieve our economic sovereignty and independence," the prime minister
announced. "This goal is now within our grasp," he added.
Earlier,
Finance Minister Michael Noonan said the country's budget deficit would fall to
4.8 percent in 2014 from 7.3 percent in 2013, well within targets agreed with
the EU.
The
coalition government of Fine Gael and the Labour Party is due to release a
budget next week to cut the budget deficit by a third, with a 2.5-billion-euro
package of spending cuts and tax rises.
The Finance
Ministry had announced this week that the economy was expected to grow 0.2
percent this year and grow by 1.8 percent in 2014.
It is not
clear if Ireland will need a precautionary credit line to insulate it against
market shocks. Noonan indicated the country may exit the bailout without the
credit line. This would block Ireland from accessing the European Central
Bank's Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program of government bond
purchases.
In late
2010, Dublin received a bailout from the European Union and International
Monetary Fund worth 85 billion euros, which forced it to introduce major
austerity measures.
jm/av (Reuters, AFP)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.