The news that Spain’s failing banks are expected to get up to a $125 billion bailout in order to keep the Eurozone from collapsing doesn’t exactly having Irish eyes smiling.
You see, back in 2010, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund bailed out Ireland to the tune of $112 billion. But in the process, they required the Irish to agree to painful austerity measures. Greece and Portugal also were forced to accept austerity measures as conditions of their bailouts. (Rioting in the streets suggests those steps were, ahem, less than popular.)
Spain’s economy is larger than the other European nations that have been bailed out thus far, so perhaps it had more clout in negotiations for its bailout. But whatever the reason, it will not be facing the same difficult rules and cutbacks that still have Greek, Portuguese and Irish tempers flaring.
And that uneven approach doesn’t sit well in Ireland, at least.
It is demanding that it get the same treatment as Spain and that it be freed from austerity efforts. It wants to “ensure parity of the deal with Spain retroactively on its bailout …,” a European government official told Agence France-Presse news agency.