Nós somos a Irlanda

"(...) The task that needs to be solved now is to stop contagion of the Irish banking crisis. The channels are easy to figure out. The two largest creditors to Ireland are the UK and Germany, with loans outstanding of $149bn and $139bn respectively, according to data from the Bank for International Settlements. An Irish bank default would affect the German and British banking systems directly, and require significant domestic bank bail-outs.
A second channel of contagion would be via the capital markets, to Portugal. The biggest creditor to Portugal is Spain, itself in a precarious position with exposures of $78bn. A default of Irish banks would spread like wildfire. It has to be prevented.
The case for Ireland to take the money from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) is overwhelming. The EFSF was set up precisely for that purpose. Contrary to what I expected, the EFSF has managed to find a way to offer loans with relatively low interest rates. The quid pro quo is a significant lower overall lending ceiling than what the official €440bn ($602bn) headline figure suggests. But even then, it is large enough to handle any conceivable Irish and Portuguese crisis. The EFSF is not large enough to handle any problems that might arise in Spain. In that sense, it is not an umbrella for the eurozone, but only for two of its smallest and most peripheral members.(...)"
o resto do artigo de Wolfgang Munchau deve ser lido aqui.