Eurozone crisis - Deals likely to cloud vote on EU treaty

Events seem to be conspiring to make even more difficult the already challenging task of having the Constitution amended to incorporate the European fiscal compact treaty.

Last week, Greece, blamed by many for the eurozone’s currency crisis, managed to reduce its mountain of debt by over €100bn by swapping privately held bonds for new, longer maturity paper with less than half the nominal value. The EU and the IMF have provided €110bn to the Greek economy and agreed an additional, second bailout fund of €130bn.

Why not us, wondered many Irish voices.