The pound’s continuing sharp slide against the euro is welcome news for shops and businesses in Northern Ireland close to the border with the Irish Republic. In towns like Newry they’re besieged by shoppers from the South.
Given the turmoil in the financial markets – including in Europe – the tenth anniversary of the creation of the euro may not be an anniversary all wish to celebrate. But it is a good time to assess how the arguments for and against the single European currency are faring in this testing economic and political climate.
In Newry, shopkeepers like Sean McGivan, manager of the SuperValu supermarket, are upbeat. “The whole North of Ireland is prospering at the minute, especially the border regions,” he says. But he points out that people living in the North have learnt to work the system for their own benefit, buying goods with euros where it represents good value to do so.
Orla Jackson, Chief Executive of Newry Chamber of Commerce & Trade, sounds a note of caution, though, about owners of businesses dreaming of prosperity based on the slide in sterling. After all, what goes up can also slip down again. “Long term, it’s not good to base your business plan around currency fluctuations,” she says.
But are the Irish regretting giving up the punt for the euro? Across the border in Dundalk, Tom MacGuinness, Chief Executive of the world-leading horse blanket business, Horseware, has no doubts about what the future holds for the pound.
“It was only a matter of time before people copped on to sterling. It’s a currency used by fifty million people on a little island beside Europe,” he argues. “The euro now is a much more stable currency than either the US dollar or sterling.”
And he isn’t sentimental about going back to the old currency. “I lived through the ups and the downs of the punt. I was here when we had nineteen per cent interest rates. It was just completely unsustainable. I’m quite sure the Danes and the Swedes will be into the euro before you can shake a candle – and the Brits for that matter!”
But how will politicians in Britain react to these changed circumstances? In Beyond Westminster this week, Elinor Goodman and her guests consider how far they change political calculations about whether or not it would be in Britain’s interests to join the euro.
GUESTS
The Lord Jones of Birmingham
Director-General of the CBI, 2000-6 and Minister of State for Trade and Investment, Dept for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (jointly with Foreign and Commonwealth Office), 2007–8.
The Lord Pearson of Rannoch
UKIP
The Rt. Hon. Patricia Hewitt, M.P.
Secretary of State for Trade & Industry, 2001-5.
The Rt. Hon. Michael Howard, Q.C., M.P.
Leader of the Conservative Party, 2003-5.
The Lord Taverne
Liberal Democrats
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