Tiger has fallen. The debate was dubbed: “Ireland – A Broken Dream?”
. . .
"Like other small countries, it has traditionally looked to the Commission as its protector. But the Commission’s relative power is in decline. The European parliament is increasingly powerful, but only 12 of its 736 members are Irish. Meanwhile, the first full-time president of the European Council, which unites EU governments, is Herman Van Rompuy, a Belgian perceived in Dublin to be instinctively close to France and Germany.
. . .
In the short term, Ireland appears to have almost no freedom of manoeuvre. EU authorities rule out bondholder write-downs for the present because of the risk of creating a funding crisis for banks across the eurozone. "
