Party time over as Lady Europe casts a watchful eye on her Irish offspring

OPPONENTS of proposals for a government of national unity or even a cross-party pact on the budget might rightly wonder why they bothered casting their vote at the last general election.

You support a candidate from a particular party that has a distinct set of policies and a healthy antagonism towards the other mug shots on the ballot sheet and the next thing you know they’re talking about setting aside their differences and hanging out with their rivals like teenage girls at a pyjama party.

But whether you take a pragmatic or indignant view of such a scenario, the reality is that it wouldn’t be the only challenge to the relevance of your precious box-ticking exercise. For whether the party ends in a zany group-photo on Facebook or one giant tear-stained pillow fight, the truth is that there is an external force which wields far more influence.

All members will have to troop meekly downstairs in the morning, sit quietly around the breakfast table and chew gratefully on whatever offerings are placed before them by the rather intimidating Bean an Tí whose expression says the previous night’s shenanigans came perilously close to the outer limits of her tolerance.

This formidable creature is Lady Europe, and however you voted last time, or intend to vote any time in the next four years, she will be looking over your shoulder reminding you that whatever box you tick, you’ll be dining off her menu of restricted activities for some time to come.

Ireland’s commitment to cut our spending deficit to 3% (from its current level of almost 12%) by 2014 sounds like little more than an accounting exercise but with Europe looking on, it’s going to become an accountability exercise.

We won’t get away with any financial hopscotch. We’ll have to decide what squares we want to place our limited financial resources on and follow through instead of moving them around randomly in the hope that everybody watching gets dizzy and loses track of what we’re doing with them.

We’ll have to take heed of views on how we raise those limited financial resources. Oh sure, Europe says she won’t dictate to us on our uniquely low corporation tax rates but she’s dropping hints so heavy they leave meteoric craters in our collective consciousness. Much like the Bean an Tí who pops her head around the door at 2am and ponders if it might be time for a bit of shut-eye, her remarks are not intended as a mere suggestion.

A raft of legislation passed in recent weeks set up three new, or least revamped, European supervisory authorities covering banking, the stock markets, and pensions and insurance, together with a European Systematic Risk Board.

These will keep an overview of the information flowing from each and press the panic button if any institution, or national regulatory body, starts behaving recklessly or negligently.

The days are truly over when a figure like Charlie McCreevy could give Europe the two fingers and accuse her of “casting green eyes of envy” on the country’s economic success after he’d announced crazily inflationary tax cuts in the 2001 budget.

But is this necessarily a bad thing? We’ve proved ourselves unfit to be left alone without a babysitter. Embarrassing and infuriating as it may be, our only hope for getting through the next decade (we’ll still be in rescue mode even if we reduce the deficit to manageable proportions by 2014 – recovery will take much longer) is if Europe watches us like a hawk.

This isn’t new territory for her. She already has a major say in our agricultural and fisheries industries, our environmental regulations, competition laws, external relations, equality safeguards, consumer rights – the list is extensive.

It’s just that in those areas, there were policies, followed by guidances, followed by directives, followed by national laws, followed by policing with varying degrees of intensity. It all seemed to happen more gradually so that Europe had tiptoed up the stairs and taken up position outside our door without us noticing too much or getting overly bothered.

But with our finances, she’s not tiptoeing any more. She’s letting us know who’s boss.

Europe doesn’t want to know about the personalities or who got what at the last poll. She just wants best behaviour at the breakfast table. We better not test her patience – we didn’t give her much sleep last night.