Economy
Exceptional: How Ireland is a fiscal outlier in new EU spending rules
New fiscal rules will seek to ensure member states spend wisely, but Ireland’s booming multinational sector will leave it untethered
A divide has emerged between how most European governments are talking about their public finances, and how Ireland is.
Following years of large emergency spending programmes to deal with the pandemic and inflation, Bruno Le Maire, the French economy minister, has recently committed to €10 billion in spending cuts this year, telling Le Monde newspaper last month that this was only a “first step” to “restore public finances”.
France’s fiscal deficit reached 5.5 per cent ...