EU rescue package - Deal needs to dissuade speculators

ONE of rugby’s more articulate and qualified commentators – the great Australian out-half Michael Lynagh – once said during a preview of one of Munster’s European Cup do-or-die extravaganzas that hope had no place in professional sport.

Yet, this fine May morning, we are left with little more than hope that the support package proposed last evening by the European Union’s 27 finance ministers in Brussels will ring-fence the Greek debt crisis and restore a degree of stability to the 16-country eurozone. We can only hope that it displays the kind of tough solidarity that will dissuade speculation against the weaker EU economies, Ireland’s included.

The scale of the crisis was put in context by an intervention from President Barack Obama who said that he was “very concerned” and stressed that stabilising Greece was vital for both Europe’s and the United States’ economic wellbeing. France’s president Sarkozy echoed remarks made by German chancellor Angela Merkel when he said: “The eurozone is going through the worst crisis since its creation.”