Just weeks to save the currency, says Martin

A STARK warning about Europe’s future has been issued by Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, who said there are “at most a few weeks left to save the euro”.

In his strongest criticism to date of the Europe’s leaders and institutions, Mr Martin said people should “make their voices heard” against a “deeply damaging selective agenda”.

With “the future of the currency on the line” Ireland “needs to start speaking up”, he said.

“Disturbingly, it has been reported that proposals are being discussed secretly which would have a dramatic and deeply damaging impact,” he said, referring to proposals to create a smaller eurozone.

The only way the euro would stay intact is if there were “significant changes to the ECB’s policies”, he said.

Mr Martin made the arguments in a letter to Taoiseach Enda Kenny, calling for an Oireachtas motion on Ireland’s negotiating position in Europe.

He laid the blame for the crisis at the door of the ECB, and said its “inflexibility and rigid adherence to 40-year-old orthodoxies is destroying the eurozone”.

He said the ECB’s reluctance and “inconsistent commitment” to buy sovereign bonds is “the root cause” of market fear spreading across countries.

“By continually saying that their intervention is only short-term the ECB’s buying is encouraging the private sector to withdraw from the market, not giving them the confidence they need to remain.”

Mr Martin wants the Government to table a formal proposal “calling on the ECB to give a commitment to embracing the role of lender of last resort”.

Mr Martin also accused Europe’s leaders of “making the crisis worse day by day” and this was being helped by the Government’s “policy of sitting on the sidelines”.

The Taoiseach did not recognise the urgency, he said. “Ireland agreed the appointment of the new ECB president without asking him any questions.”

Ireland’s negotiations went from being highly active to non-existent, he said.

“The only consistent policy has been waiting to see what emerges from other negotiations and finding things to try to claim credit for,” he said.

Mr Martin has been outspoken against the ECB in recent months but denied Fianna Fáil was becoming a eurosceptic party.