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Enda Kenny and Angela Merkel speak to reporters after a meeting in Berlin last year. The two have issued a joint statement today acknowledging Ireland's financial situation is "a special case". Michael Sohn/AP

'Ireland is a special case': Kenny and Merkel commit to improving bailout

Enda Kenny and Angela Merkel issue a joint statement describing Ireland as “a special case” financially.

TAOISEACH ENDA KENNY and the German chancellor Angela Merkel have issued a joint statement affirming that Europe remains committed to splitting Ireland’s banking and sovereign debts.

The statement comes after the two leaders spoke by telephone this afternoon.

Their joint communiqué says the pair had “discussed the unique circumstances behind Ireland’s banking and sovereign debt crisis” and the deal reached by EU leaders four months ago, where they agreed to end the ‘vicious circle’ of banking and sovereign debts.

The two “reaffirmed” that deal, where heads of state told the 17 Eurozone finance ministers “to examine the situation of the Irish financial sector with a view to further improving the sustainability of the well performing adjustment programme”.

The statement said Ireland was recognised as “a special case”, given the circumstances under which Ireland was frozen out of the bond markets, and said the finance ministers would take this into account when examining how to improve the terms of Ireland’s bailout deal.

The communiqué comes after Merkel appeared to throw a spanner in the works of attempts to improve Ireland’s financial situation, and help it to return to international money markets, when insisting that the Eurozone’s new permanent bailout fund could not recapitalise banks retrospectively.

Though Merkel had been asked about how the issue would concern Spain, the move was seen as a blow to Ireland – though the door remained open for the bailout fund, the ESM, to perhaps acquire some of the Irish state’s shareholding in the banks it has paid €64.1 billion to save.

The acknowledgement from Merkel that Ireland is a ‘special case’, however, will encourage the government in its bid to improve the state of Ireland’s financial outlook – particularly as the statement refers to the “unique circumstances” behind Ireland’s debt crisis, in which state aid for struggling banks had played a major part.

Kenny and Merkel: the statement in full

The Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke together this afternoon.

They discussed the unique circumstances behind Ireland’s banking and sovereign debt crisis, and Ireland’s plans for a full return to the markets. In this regard they reaffirmed the commitment from June 29th to task the Eurogroup to examine the situation of the Irish financial sector with a view to further improving the sustainability of the well performing adjustment programme.

They recognise in this context, that Ireland is a special case, and that the Eurogroup will take that into account.

Read: Rabbitte slams ‘orgy of negativity’ over bank debt deal

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158 Comments
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    Mute Daffers
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 12:55 PM

    Wow. To be the 7th least failed state in the world is mindblowing… simply for the thought that most are in a worse position than us!

    58
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    Mute Alex simon
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 1:35 PM

    We are better than canada! And the usa not bad

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    Mute Treasa Lynch
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 1:21 PM

    Am I reading that right? Only three other EU members are less failed states than Ireland is?

    God that must really irritate the crew who consider us a complete banana republic.

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    Mute Kevin O Sullivan
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 1:03 PM

    i thought everything in the nordic countries was top banna. seeings they are always held up as the ones to be like

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    Mute Claire O'Dwyer
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 1:09 PM

    That article doesn’t make a whole pile of sense..

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    Mute fizi_water
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 2:57 PM

    This ranking is not about quality of life, etc. like some comments suggest you read that. It’s about peace and military risks in particular countries.

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    Mute Ryan Murphy
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 6:11 PM

    I suppose it’s “our” fault that seven of the ten worst countries are in Africa.

    Haiti was a cesspit ever before the tragedy there, sadly, and now they’ve turned to raping one another.

    Iraq and Afghanistan are a whole other story!

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    Mute fitszpatrick
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    Jun 24th 2011, 12:10 AM

    Hail the baldy Nazis dem dam nigras don’t have a clue

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    Mute Ryan Murphy
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    Jun 24th 2011, 1:23 AM

    You’re some gowl.

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    Mute David Higgins
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 6:05 PM

    I hope we can move up near Switzerland at some stage. Tighter borders, lower-taxes, and they have their own currency!!!

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    Mute Dave Finn
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 11:10 PM

    Lower taxes? Really? Any mid Europe states i’ve lived in were thieves when it came to tax! (admittedly i’ve not lived in Switzerland, but it is one of my favourite places!)

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    Mute Shaafici Cali
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 1:40 PM

    really this is propaganda somalia is not leading top list there is bit exageration we aware of that somalia is devastated country and failure state indicating humanitarian crises and human rights abuses ,killing ,abducting, hijacking raping but there is still hope to survive this condition we are not hopeless our people still struggling to control there live style and to restore the country peace and stability so that we are not top list becouse this means no hope

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    Mute fizi_water
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 3:03 PM

    Sorry, but what is actually your point, I struggle to understand? Thanks.

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    Mute wayupnorth
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 4:11 PM

    I think the point was that “there is hope”.

    And yes, if other countries stopped interfering, there probably would be. For example:
    “The United States has quietly poured weapons and military advisers into Ethiopia, whose recent invasion of Somalia opened a new front in the Bush administration’s war on terrorism …” etc etc. 1/8/2007

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