It won’t be the PIIGS who ruin the EU

IT almost made me burn with rage when I heard French President Sarkozy’s griping about our “low rate” of corporation tax.

With his usual penchant for what could be interpreted as veiled threats, he mentioned that Ireland couldn’t keep coming for EU financial assistance while having a tax rate half that of France or other EU countries. Let’s be clear about a few things — the financial bailout to Ireland is not just about helping our banks, it’s also about helping the rest of the eurozone maintain its stability.

Were the countries so disparagingly referred to in some circles as PIIGS to collapse, it would bode very ill indeed for the whole EU federal project so beloved of yet another Frenchman of small stature and grand notions.

Secondly, it seems despite being fully aware of Ireland’s precarious condition, Sarkozy would tug away from under our feet the one carpet that helps us compete in an otherwise very un-level playing pitch.

We do not have the mass populations or heavy industries of either France or Germany, but Sarkozy, who cares only about France and an EU superstate and in that order, doesn’t even want us to have that.

Where is the much vaunted “healthy competition” that these acolytes of the free market are always baying about? The fine print of the current IMF / EU bailout package wants Ireland opened up to even more external competition. Yet he detests healthy competition among EU countries when it goes against the interest of Sarkozy.

Thirdly, other EU countries may have higher corporation tax rates but they add other sweeteners and packages that make these rates less drastic than they look.

I didn’t believe these hypocrites when we were being promised “no interference” in our corporate tax rate as a sweetener to vote Yes to Lisbon II and time has shown me right. Having bullied and gotten what they wanted I knew they would come after our corporate tax rate as soon as the dust settled.

All this without delivering even a single of the promised jobs that were supposed to flow from Lisbon, apart from some new EU official posts.

If the EU ever collapses, I suspect it will have a lot more to do with the megalomania and greed of certain leaders than the sorry financial state of the “PIIGS”.

Nick Folley

Carrigaline

Co Cork