Anglo IOU must be paid, says EU’s Rehn

The EU has told Ireland to pay the €3.1bn IOU due for Anglo at the end of the month, dashing the Government’s hopes that it could postpone the payment.

However, the door was not shut on a deal that could halve the €47bn overall cost of the promissory note system used to rescue Anglo.

European Commission vice-president Olli Rehn was asked if he thought the Government should make the next payment when it was due, to which he replied: “I wonder why this has to be asked at all because the principle in the European Union and in the longer EU legal and history tradition is pacta sunt servanda: Respect your commitments and obligations.