Chapter 5
Ireland’s Zombies Bring the House Down
When delegations from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB), and the European Commission arrived in Ireland in November 2010 to negotiate an aid package for the distressed country, the teams settled in the finance ministry building, a baroque structure with Roman columns in downtown Dublin. The staff at the ministry referred to the delegates as Germans, even though they hailed from various countries and only a few were in fact German nationals. But the name stuck because of the general sense among ministry staff that the actual negotiation was being held with Germany, which was calling the shots in the European Union (EU) and dictating the terms at the talks. Germany’s ...
