Ireland and all EU member states have obligations to ensure that their economies do not exceed various thresholds on indicators monitored by the European Commission. The Macroeconomic Scoreboard publication is designed to help users to verify the European Commission's data on Ireland and provides additional analysis.
This publication focuses on the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) scoreboard and the criteria of the Stability and Growth Pact. The recent financial crisis has highlighted the importance of the early detection and correction of macroeconomic imbalances across EU countries and the euro area. This has led the European Commission to develop the MIP which came into force in December 2011 as part of the 'six-pack' of legislative acts which strengthens the monitoring of macroeconomic policies in the EU and the euro area. Ireland first came into this framework in 2014 after exiting the EU-IMF Programme of Financial Support at the end of the previous year.
Under the MIP, potential macroeconomic vulnerabilities of EU countries are assessed by the European Commission using defined standard indicators related to both internal and external macroeconomic imbalances.
The MIP is built around a “two-step” approach with the first step consisting of the MIP scoreboard which acts as an alert mechanism. The MIP scoreboard is made up of 11 indicators which monitor any potential internal or external macroeconomic imbalances. The MIP scoreboard indicators are accompanied by indicative thresholds which are used to identify any potential economic imbalances. The indicators are mainly compiled by Eurostat with Irish data provided by the CSO.
Excessive threshold breaches on the MIP scoreboard trigger in-depth studies undertaken by the Commission which act as the second step of the MIP. If such imbalances are problematic then the Commission may substantiate policy recommendations if appropriate.
Set out in the Table below are the 11 headline indicators from the latest round of the MIP Scoreboard, along with the institution and the Irish statistical domain (where relevant) which supplied the data.
The statistical areas in the CSO providing the data for compilation of the MIP scoreboard are:
| MIP Scoreboard Indicators | ||
| Indicator | Source | |
| Institution | Statistical domain | |
| 1. Current account balance as % of GDP | CSO | BOP |
| 2. Net international investment position as % of GDP | CSO | BOP |
| 3. Real effective exchange rate | DG ECFIN | |
| 4. Share of world exports | CSO, Eurostat, IMF | BOP |
| 5. Nominal unit labour cost | CSO | NA |
| 6. House prices - deflated | CSO | Prices |
| 7. Private credit flow as % of GDP | CSO | FA |
| 8. Private debt as % of GDP | CSO | FA |
| 9. General government gross debt (EDP) as % of GDP | CSO | GFS |
| 10. Unemployment rate | CSO | LFS |
| 11. Total financial sector liabilities | CSO | FA |
Documentation outlining the scoreboard indicators can be found on the European Commission website at:
http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/publications/occasional_paper/2012/op92_en.htm
The MIP Scoreboard is just one component in the preventive arm of the economic surveillance framework which the European Commission has in place to monitor economic developments in member states. Details of this surveillance framework, and the functioning of the MIP Scoreboard within it, can also be found on the European Commission website at:
http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/economic_governance/index_en.htm
Further details of the framework of governance and economic surveillance within the EU can also be found on the website of the Department of Finance at:
http://www.finance.gov.ie/what-we-do/eu-international/european-semester-and-eu-governance
