It's the end of another turbulent week in the European financial crisis, and one in which the problems in the eurozone had a real, damaging effect on the global economy.

Here's a brisk and breezy closing summary:

Ireland has voted to sign up for Europe's new fiscal treaty. The referendum on the European Fiscal Stability Treaty saw just over 60% of people vote YES. The result was welcomed by the Irish prime minister, and EU officials, but No campaigners warned that the government must now meet its promises on growth and job creation.

World stock markets have fallen again, as the eurozone crisis and the slowing global economy prompted another wave of selling. The FTSE 100 fell 60 points, the German DAX lost 3.4%, and the Dow Jones index is now in the red for 2012.

New economic data showed that May was not a great month for global manufacturing. In Europe, output fell with several countries suffering sharp declines. China's manufacturing output growth almost stalled, according to official figures, or shrank acccording to a private survey.

The US jobs market also performed worse than expected last month. Just 69,000 new jobs were created last month, showing the American economy was weaker than thought.

In Greece, Alexis Tsipras outlined his economic programme. The Syriza leader promised to impose a "debt moratorium", raise the minimum wage and reinstate unemployment benefits.

And finally, the cost of insuring Spanish debt hit another high, Bloomberg began testing the reintroduction of the drachma as part of a contingency plan, and Silvio Berlusconi suggested that Italy should start printing its own euros to fix the debt crisis.

Hope you all have a great weekend. I'm off to bed. Goodnight!

Wall Street is ending the week in a bad way, with the Dow Jones index now down by 257 points at 12136, a 2% fall.

Brenda Kelly of CMC Markets explains that the eurozone crisis, and the bad US jobs data, combined to alarm traders in New York:

Much of the rout in equity markets has been laid at the feet of Europe. The non-farm payrolls missing by such a huge margin, coming in at 69,000 against an expectation of 150,000 along with last month's dire numbers being revised down to 87,000 does imply that the blame can be shared.

Last night, we asked a group of Dublin residents to talk about the referendum vote (see here).

Now, we've gone back to them for their views, following Ireland's decision to approve the fiscal treaty by 60.3% to 39.7% (the group are all members of a creative writing class in Dublin, taught by our Henry McDonald).



Maryline, originally from Paris, had this French angle on how Ireland had voted:

Without many surprises, the Yes camp won. Even if I'm not directly impacted as I'm not Irish it does concern me – my social and economic life as part of an adopted Irish citizen. I can imagine within few month the austerity growing faster, bills increasing and wondering myself the following – as many other people before going to GP: do I buy food for the week or do I receive a decent health care service? I'm a bit disappointed. I would have liked feel the wind of Irish Revolution, the smell of Government defiance, a possibility of treaty re-negotiation between all European countries and not only been subjected to a policy dictated by one State and its financial market. I guess people did not want to take a risk and to be the European ugly duckling. Does the treaty will avoid investor to fly to China, India or Brazil? I doubt it. Profits is the key and it seems that for them, there is no more money to do in Ireland anymore. However, they should remember this: YES we're broke but NO, we won't give up to fight for a dignified life.

Niamh Ní Shúilleabháin had this perspective on the surprisingly decisive vote in favour.

So it's a yes vote and time for campaigners to pull down the thousands of Yes posters which promised blue skies, stability and jobs. Where will all the posters go? The same way as all of the promises which European leaders have made since 2008. The scrap heap. Last night I was unsure If I would vote. But I made my way reluctantly the polling station and posted my ballot. Today, I am disappointed that my fellow citizens felt they had no option but to vote yes and this campaign has left me disillusioned to say the least. To believe that this treaty will bring stability would be foolish. Nothing has changed and across Europe politicians have failed to implement any reforms which would significantly restore confidence. I would wager that many of those who voted yesterday, like their continental cousins, have savings stashed under the mattress. Just in case.

But another Niamh, Ms Ni Mhaoileoin, was happier over the verdict of the Irish electorate:

Colour me relieved. For the sake of Irish stability and (albeit distant) growth, it was necessary for the referendum to be carried. It's good to see that the loudness of the no campaign was disproportionate to its level of support. However, I don't think that the coalition should chalk this up as a victory. The government campaign showed the same electoral complacency that characterized the previous two/four European referenda and we're lucky that that didn't decide the result. The last few weeks have shown the deep divisions between different sectors of Irish society. The range of results across urban constituencies reflect a dissatisfaction with austerity politics in working class communities. Today's 'yes' buys time, but doesn't resolve the underlying issues.

Lisa Marie Jones smelt fear in the air in this campaign.



I think those who have voted yes have voted out of fear.

Afraid of the future with little confidence in the Irish government. I wonder who voted, the elderly, the young who have yet to start their working life,those who have had to leave work prematurely - the vulnerable and the innocent or was it truly the well informed?"

Laurence O'Bryan was in a mournful mood over the vote:

Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, it's with Mr Haughey in the grave . I do believe today's result in Ireland marks a watershed. Cowed and in fear the Republic that WB Yeats watched being born, is handing away its powers. Perhaps it's for the better though. Mismanagement over the past 30 years, by two generations of politicians, in successive governments of every Irish stripe, is striking. Perhaps only by abolishing its powers will this ninety year old Irish Parliament find a better way. I make no excuses for them, but one thing I do know is that we've given Angela what she wants. The Superstate is close now. Let's see what they do with their victory. Let's see where it takes us all. (with apologies to WB fans).

And Sarah Brennan found the result disappointing and disturbing.

In simple terms, the referendum functioned as a barometer of the Irish populace's willingness to tolerate destructive and irrational policies emanating from the European right. The votes have been tallied, the results are in, and the Irish people have spoken. Yes to fiscal austerity devoid of growth measures; Yes to the socialisation and failed negotiation of private banking debt; Yes to further socio-economic division; Yes to sending a clear signal to the ECB that Spain and Italy should be prioritised for emergency funding. Us Irish are content to contend with economic strangulation. Isn't that right, folks? What's good for Eurocrats and wealthy financiers is inevitably good for Ireland. Angela Merkel is operating in the interest of greater Europe. It's not like she's pummeling out policies that are scrupulously tailored to Germany's self-interest, now is it? Those who issued a Yes vote yesterday have been duped. For many, the impetus for endorsing the treaty's contents stemmed from fear rather than logic. The argument that the Irish electorate's endorsement of the treaty will strengthen Enda Kenny's capacity to broker a better outcome for Ireland behind closed doors is fantasy. In the trenches of the most severe economic crisis Ireland has seen in decades, the current Irish government has been impulsive, shortsighted, and nauseatingly weak in the face of intimidation from more powerful EU states. One would think they are oblivious to the grim realities of power politics, satisfied to cast the fate of their people into the hands of self-interested elites. Ireland bowed down to austerity in quiet desperation yesterday. Let's hope she can get back up.

The most curious story of the day comes from Italy, where Silvio Berlusconi declared today that the European Central Bank must start printing money, otherwise Italy might just do the job for it.

Berlusconi, who had maintained a low profile since resigning as Italian prime minister last November, burst back into the spotlight by declaring it could be time for Italy to say "ciao, euro":

I'll tell you the crazy idea that I have in mind: let's start printing euros with our national mint [if the ECB refuses to do so]." If Europe doesn't pay attention to our demands, we should say 'ciao ciao' and leave the euro. Leaving the euro wouldn't be the end of the world. Britain is a solid country and has never joined the euro.

The Open Europe think tank summed up Berlusconi's remarks as "extraordinary", not least the suggestion that Germany should quit the euro if it was not prepared to allow the ECB to fire up the printing presses.

European stock markets closed with heavy losses, again, today. The selloff was most pronounced in Germany, where manufacturers suffered from this morning's poor manufacturing data.

FTSE 100: down 60 points at 5260, - 1.14%

German DAX: down 214 points at 6050, -3.4%

French CAC: down 66 points at 2950, -2.21%

Spanish IBEX: down 24 points at 6605, -0.4%

Italian FTSE MIB: down 133 points at 12,739, -1%

I mentioned this morning that a code for the drachma appeared on Bloomberg terminals today, exciting City traders (see 11.31am).

Well, Bloomberg has now confirmed that the code temporarily appeared, as part of a planning exercise. Here's the official line:



In the normal course of business, Bloomberg carries out contingency planning exercises. In accordance with this, Bloomberg has planned for a number of different scenarios across all our businesses including individual sovereign default scenarios and changes of currency for individual sovereigns. As part of this testing process, a test identifier was briefly visible to a few customers

Guess it's sensible for a key player such as Bloomberg to be taking such precautions - even though the exitable talk of an imminent Grexit has calmed down this week.

The resounding victory for the Yes campaign is something of a triumph for Ireland's prime minister, argues our own Henry McDonald:

Enda Kenny's achievement in securing the Yes vote by such a decisive majority should not be underestimated.



The now disgraced previous Taoiseach Bertie Ahern even at the height of his popularity lost the Nice 1 treaty referendum while his sucessor as premier Brian Cowen lost the first referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. Amid a four year long recession, austerity budgets, rising unemployment and public anger the Fine Gael-Labour coalition still won the day.

In the UK, Eurosceptic MP Douglas Carswell makes the point that the Irish people have just agreed to a Treaty that could be rewritten in a few months.

Carswell said:

I completely respect the verdict of the Irish people, but I am not sure what it is that they have voted on....The French have just elected a president who said he was going to change the terms of the treaty.

It's not clear how much progress François Hollande will make on reshaping the fiscal compacy, given Berlin's commitment to it.

Having said that, quotes from Angela Merkel are just hitting the wires, with the German chancellor saying that growth and fiscal consolidation must go hand in hand....

Here's a picture of happy members of the Yes campaign at the count centre in Dublin Castle, when the result of the referendum (see 3.35pm onwards) was announced.

Fine Gael's Frances Fitzgerald, minister for children and youth affairs, is pictured in the centre of the snap, looking pleased with events.

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, whose party was a leading player in the No campaign, has also spoken following the result.

Adams said the Dublin government must now meet the promises it made during the campaign, on economic growth and employment:

The Government has given firm commitments in terms of committing on a bank bailout, in terms of growth and jobs incentive initiatives so we will be holding the Government to those promises. The problems which are facing people today will be there tomorrow.

Adams also claimed some Yes voters had cast their ballots "very, very reluctantly." That's a point that was also made by Senator Darragh O'Brien today, when he spoke of a "grudging, pragmatic vote" in favour of the Treaty.

Ireland's deputy prime minister Eamon Gilmore has welcomed the referendum result, saying it will help the country recover.

Gilmore said:

I think this decision taken by the Irish people is a necessary step on the road to recovery but we now have to build on it. This was not just an exercise ... asking people to vote Yes - it was also an occasion where we listened to what people where saying.

He also said that Ireland must now persuade Europe to cut it a deal over its bank debt. Dublin is desperate to lower the interest rate on the promissory notes it issued when it took the huge losses made by its banking sector onto the public books.

A majority of people voted Yes in 38 of Ireland's 43 constituencies.

In five constituencies, though, voters rejected the EU fiscal treaty, defying the overall 60.3% swing in favour.

This included three constituencies in Dublin, and both constituencies in Donegal:

Dublin North West Result: No 53.24% Yes 46.76%

Dublin South Central Result: No 50.90% Yes 49.10%

Dublin South West Result: No 50.70% Yes 49.30%

Donegal South West Result: No 54.95% Yes 45.05%

Donegal North East Result: No 55.63% Yes 44.37%

Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, has just welcomed the result of the Irish referendum.

Van Rompuy said the result would help bring stability to Europe.



With this vote, the Irish people have given their endorsement and commitment to European integration. This result is an important step towards recovery and stability.

And here is the official result -- Ireland has voted in favour of the fiscal compact.

The vote is a comfortable victory for the Yes camp, with 60.3% of votes in favour.

Returning officer Riona Ni Flanghaile has just announced that 955,091 votes were cast in favour, and 629,088 against.

This means Ireland will sign the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and

Governance.

The turnout came in at just over 50%.

More to follow!

Looks like we're on the verge of an official result in Ireland.

With just one constituency left to declare -- Laois Offaly -- the Yes campaign have around 60% of the vote, so it really is in the bag.

Here's a selection of recent results, most of which show solid majorities for the Yes vote (via RTE)

Cork South West Result: Yes 66.27% No 33.73%

Cork North West Result: Yes 65.59% No 34.41%

Cork East Result: Yes 60.52% No 39.48%

Wexford Result: Yes 57.81% No 42.19%

Longford-Westmeath Result: Yes 60.30% No 39.70%

A bit more on the US jobs markets, from Dominic Rushe, our correspondent on Wall Street:



One of the issues holding back the recovery in the US jobs market is the constant, month on month, cuts to the number of public workers.

....As this graph shows.

Teachers are being particularly hard hit at the moment, as Dominic reported here. But cuts have come across the board, especially at the state level. Another 13,000 government jobs went in May.

Today's disappointing US jobless data (see 1.30pm) has sparked a hefty selloff on Wall Street, where the Dow Jones index fell by 191 points to 12,205 in early trading.

The news that a mere 67,000 new jobs were created in America last month has alarmed economists.

Betsey Stevenson, professor of business and public policy at Wharton business school, said: "This is a very bad report. It changes where I thought the US economy was."

She said the cuts to April's job figures were particularly worrying, pointing to a slowdown in the US recovery. The number of long-term unemployed rose to 5.4m from 5.1m, another worrying sign of weakness, said Stevenson.

Our full story on the non-farm payroll stats is now live, here.

We don't expect to get the result from Ireland until 5pm or later, but both sides have accepted that Ireland will sign the fiscal treaty.

Fine Gael TD and Junior finance minister in the Irish Cabinet, Brian Hayes, said the result was a very clear cut one in favour of the EU treaty.

Henry McDonald explains:

Hayes who played a central role in running the government's campaign in the referendum said the key priority now was to "get back into the money markets and get back our sovereignty that the people of this country hold so dear."

The minister said Irish people had ratified the treaty because they didn't want "Ireland at the centre of the storm a bit like what has happened in Greece."

His own constituency of Dublin South West voted narrowly against the treaty which Hayes put down to anger over job losses in the area rather than hostility towards the EU.

Hayes' Fine Gael colleague, the European Minister Lucinda Creighton earlier caused some mirth and much sniggering among the press corps at Dublin Castle when she was asked about German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Creighton said he didn't want Merkel to become "the whipping girl" of the EU!

Big fan of fiscal discipline, our Angela....

Back to the Irish referendum, where the No campaign are looking to the future.

Speaking at Dublin Castle Sinn Fein's Mary Lou McDonald said the Irish government now had to deliver on their promises to acheive stability and growth following the Yes vote. The Dublin TD said her party would hold the Fine Gael-Labour coalition to account.

McDonald told reporters in Dublin:

Now let's see what happens next because when you have been out on the campaign trail and we held public meetings right across this state, we talked to, I lost count of how many people, and things are really really tough. People want to see progress, they want to have a sense of hope and I remain absolutely sure that if the government persists with its policy of austerity and cutbacks then we won't see that improvement, we won't have that hope. We will be holding the government to the clear promises it made during this campaign.

The US dollar tumbled against the yen when today's weak jobs data was released (see 1.30pm). From 78.12 yen to the dollar, it shot down to 77.69 yen/dollar.

But almost immediately, it spiked back - sparking speculation on the trading floors that the Bank of Japan had intervened.

That would be a real sign of crisis - central banks driving down the value of their currency. However, the BoJ isn't commenting on the reports, and experts suggest that Japan hasn't actually pulled the trigger:

@ChrisAdamsMKTS nope, hearing just a rate check — World First (@World_First) June 1, 2012

A rate check involves simply phoning trading houses to inquire what the yen is changing hands for -- and could be seen as a 'shot over the bows', hinting at action to come.

News in from Greece where our correspondent Helena Smith says radical left leader Alexis Tsipras has been racheting up the rhetoric ahead of the country's critical June 17 poll.



Helena writes:



Alexis Tsipras gave a vintage performance this morning as he presented the economic policies of his radical left Syriza party in Athens barely three weeks before Greeks cast their ballots for a second time in less than two months.

The youthful leader, emboldened by polls that have shown his left coalition party either in the lead or trailing the centre-right New Democracy party by less than 3 points, turned the occasion into a devastating attack on the 'catastrophic' bailout agreements Greece has signed with the EU and IMF. The forthcoming vote amounted to a single dilemma, he said: "either you enforce it or you annul it [the agreement]."

"The first act of a government of the left, as soon as the new parliament is sworn in will be the cancellation of the memorandum [bailout agreement] and its implementation laws," he told a crowd of party cadres.

Outlining the onerous conditions Athens must meet to receive quarterly injections of cash, the memorandum has demanded repeated spending cuts and tax increases since first being enforced in May 2010.

But standing under a banner that read "we are opening the way to hope" Tsipras said if the accord continued to be applied, the debt-choked country would take even longer to exit its ever-worsening recession with the best case scenario being 2014 before it began to see the faintest glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

Even worse, Greece would require at least a decade before returning to the markets from which it has been kept out because of prohibitive borrowing rates since 2010. "There is not a serious economist in Europe or the world who does not think these policies will lead to total catastrophe," he said as supporters shouted "the time of the Left [in power] has come."

"The memorandum is a mechanism of definitive bankruptcy and pushing the country to a voluntary withdrawal from the eurozone … there is no more or less bad memorandum. You either implement it or you cancel it … we will cancel it."

In what will surely be seen as even more alarming news for foreign lenders, Tsipras said Syriza would replace the memorandum with a "national plan of correction" – one that would seek "to drastically reduce the debt repayments" or enforce a "debt moratorium" that would effectively halt the servicing of Greece's 200 bn euro debt mountainuntil the economy was stabilized. A central part of the plan would be to clamp down on rampant tax evasion with a 'radical overhaul' of the tax collection system that currently put the onus on low income and middle class Greeks rather than the rich.

There was music for the ears of austerity weary Greeks who Syriza cadres fear are now being "terrorised" into voting for the "pro-European, pro-memorandum" New Democracy party on a platform of euro versus drachma scaremongering.

Under his stewardship, the minimum wage would be reintroduced to 751 euro per month and unemployment benefits would be reinstated, said Tsipras.

Bad news from America – the much-awaited non-farm payroll data showed that just 69,000 new jobs were created in the US last month.

That's much lower than forecast, and politically a blow to Barack Obama with the re-election battle looming.

The US Labour Department also revised down its estimates for the previous two months. It now estimates that just 77,000 jobs were created in April, not 115,000 as first thought, and 143,000 in March, not 154,00.

European shares are turning even lower, with the FTSE 100 shedding another 35 points to 5244, down 76 today.

Europe's stock markets are a mess of red today, with almost every major index falling. Only Spain's IBEX is up.

This morning's disappointing manufacturing data is the main cause of the selloff (with the ongoing eurocrisis adding to nervousness):

FTSE 100: down 41 points at 5279, - 0.77%

German DAX: down 176 points at 6088, - 2.8%

French CAC: down 60 points at 295, - 2.0%

IBEX: up 10 points at 6100, + 0.18%

FTSE MIB: down 142 points at 12730, -1.11%

This followed losses in Asia overnight, and means that global share prices – as measured by the MSCI world stock index – is now at its lowest level for 2012.

This graph shows how the MSCI has performed over the last 18 months.

Concerns over Spain's ability to avoid seeking financial aid continue to spook the financial markets today.

This pushed up the cost of insuring Spain's debt to a new record high, with its credit default swap jumping by another 14 basis points to 610.

That means it now costs $610,000 per year to insure €10m of Spanish debt against default.

The move followed reports that Spain will not announce details of a mechanism to ease the funding problems of its heavily indebted regions today, as hoped.

A quick update on the count in Ireland, underlying that the Yes vote is romping to victory

In Dublin North, the YES count is running at 64%, with all the boxes now open. Over in Cork South-Central, the YES lead is 61% to 39%.

It's not a rout, though -- in Dublin Mid-West, the No side is ahead with 51% of the vote...

Senator Darragh O'Brien, the leader of Fianna Fail in Ireland's Senate, acknowledged that the Yes outcome was a "grudging, pragmatic vote" but said the outcome was the right one.

O'Brien said that even in his constituency of North Dublin Yes voters had backed the treaty even though they were angry about austerity and the four year long recession.

Henry has also interviewed Declan Ganley, one of the most prominent No campaigners.

Ganley said that a Yes victory (as appears certain) had sent the wrong signal back to Brussels.

Speaking inside the Dublin Castle media centre, Ganley argued that by voting Yes Irish people were "vesting trust one more time" into the EU leadership to do the right thing.

He said the EU should start dealing with the issue of personal bank debt with Ireland having the largest private debt in Europe.

Ganley said:

That issue cannot be allowed to continue and what the Irish votes have said with this Yes vote is they still have good faith in Europe's leadership to address this issue and do the right thing by us. I am concerned that this signal will be misinterpreted as being a message that everything is OK here and that nothing needs to be done. That's not what this signal is because I do not believe the Irish electorate is saying everything is fine.

Danley added that he was not optimistic that the EU leadership would tackle head-on the crippling personal bank debt in Ireland.

The early results of the voting from Ireland throws a spotlight on social divides across the country.

Henry McDonald explains:

The first divide is the urban-rural split, with most constituncies with a large farming community voting Yes to the treaty. Irish farmers are traditionally pro European given the EU's largesse to the agricultural community through the Common Agricultural Policy. In the cities particularly Dublin the split between Yes and No runs on class lines. In the west Dublin working class district of Ballyfermot the tally count is indicating that 90% of those who bothered to vote opted for No while in middle class Sandymount 77% voted Yes.

There's a lot of buzz in the City this morning after traders discovered that there is now a code for the Greek drachma on Bloomberg.

The code in question is 'XGD CURNCY' (see below), which is described as "Greek Drachma Post EUR spot". It doesn't appear to actually link to a tradable currency unit - the message "Access to this security is restricted by its supplier" appears if you click on it.

It's also not clear if it's just been created, or if there's another reason why it's just been spotted today.

Anyway, here's the proof:

Either Bloomberg plays games with our hearts or Greeks want to issue "Post-Euro" currency indeed. #Drachma $XGD twitter.com/russian_market… — Russian Market (@russian_market) June 1, 2012

UPDATE: Joe Weisenthal, Business Insider's tireless reporter on all things financial, reports that it's been set up as "an internal function which is set up to test."

Great timing, guys.....

Looking at Greece.... six different opinion polls were released this morning, on the last day that polling data can be released before the June 17 election.

As is now traditional, each poll paints a different picture of the situation. Five put New Democracy in the lead, by between 1.4% and 2.5%. The sixth gives Syriza a big lead, 6% ahead of New Democracy.

Details here (in Greek) (thanks to @Finisterre67 )

Declan Ganley, the millionaire businessman who led the free market anti-Europe Libertas group, has conceded this morning that Ireland has voted Yes.

Henry McDonald, our Irish correspondent, is now very confident that the Yes campaign has won the referendum on the fiscal compact.

Despite the No campaign winning in Donegal North East (see last post), the overall national picture firmly indicates that Ireland is on course to ratify the treaty.

In traditional eurosceptic Donegal North East they have gone against the national trend and voted against the treaty.

The vote divided 56% No, and 44% for the treaty, in the northwest constituency.

The award for spoilt ballot paper of the day has been claimed, by John McGuirk on Twitter (you've got to click the link below):

Europe's unemployment crisis has deepened further, with the news that the jobless rate across the eurozone is now at a record high of 11%.

Eurostat reported that the unemployment rate hit this all-time high in March, and maintained it in April.

As usual, the jobless data showed the stark differences between member stats of the eurozone.

The lowest unemployment rates for April were recorded in Austria (3.9%), Luxembourg (5.2%). the Netherlands (5.2%) and Germany (5.4%).

Spain again posted the highest jobless rate (24.3%), with Portugal (15.2%). New data wasn't available for Greece (where the unemployment rate was last recorded at 21.7% in February).

Irish government ministers are now clearly confident of success in today's referendum, after rumours of a wobble last night when it became clear just how low the turnout was.

Speaking in Dublin, European affairs minister Lucinda Creighton said the government now expected the electorate to vote YES to ratifying the fiscal compact treaty.

Creighton said:

We are very, very confident. We'll have to wait another half an hour to see how the tallies are looking, but so far so good.

Opponents of the fiscal compact are also disheartened, with freelance journalist Kieran Dunne tweeting his disappointment that Ireland appeared to be giving its support to the Treaty:

Have turned off #euref coverage. Annoyed to be Irish. Only we would roll over this early. — Kieran Dunne (@KieranDunne11) June 1, 2012

Henry McDonald reports from Dublin that the panic among pro-European parties over yesterday's poor turn out, which RTE says will struggle to reach 50%, appears to be subsiding.



One Fianna Fail source has told The Guardian that the Yes could be around 54%, a small majority in favour of the treaty but a win none the less.

Irish broadcaster RTE has got a great rolling tally of voting results from across Ireland, here.

For example, it reports that:

With 60% of boxes open in Limerick City the Yes is at 60% while No is at 40%. In Limerick, the Yes are are on 57% and No on 43% with 70% of boxes open.

After half an hour of counting the first tallies from polling stations suggest that in rural areas of Co.Waterford in southeast Ireland the Yes vote is around 55% with 45% voting No.

Those conducting the tallies are representatives from all the major political parties.

Early reports from Co.Wicklow south of Dublin suggest that 50% of voters turned out yesterday in the EU referendum.

In the Dublin suburb of Sandymount the early tallies indicate a small majority in favour of a Yes vote.

Over in Ireland, the first ballot boxes were opened at 9am sharp, and counting is now underway in the Irish referendum on the EU Fiscal Treaty.

Around only half of the 3.1 million voters eligible to vote turned out yesterday to decide the fate of 27 EU states and the single currency.

Henry McDonald, our Ireland correspondent, reports:

Irish government sources were briefing last night that they believed the treat would be ratified after earlier fears that a low turn out would benefit the No camp. By mid afternoon a result is expected on the referendum. The turn out in the critical battleground of Dublin was down from 59 per cent from the Lisbon Treaty in October 2009. A late tweet and text campaign by the ruling party Fine Gael suggested there was concern in government about the low turn out at the polls.

Yet more gloom -- the UK manufacturing sector sufferered its second-biggest fall in 20 years in May.

At 45.9, Britain's manufacturing sector experienced its biggest contraction since the middle of 2009. That's a really big fall, compared with April's 50.2.

Being outside the eurozone is not enough to spare Britain from what looks like a nasty economic slowdown.

And here's a graph of all this morning's eurozone manufacturing PMI data, following the news that the sector suffered its worst month in three years (see 9.07am)

It shows how most countries' factory sectors contracted last month, with Spain and Greece suffering the most.

Economists say this morning's very weak manufacturing data (see 9.07am) means the eurozone economy is certainly shrinking at the moment.

Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight said the news was "hugely disappointing", and would mean GDP will fall in the current quarter:

It is evident that Eurozone manufacturers are currently finding life difficult amid very challenging conditions. Domestic demand is being handicapped by tighter fiscal policy in many Eurozone countries, still squeezed consumer purchasing power, and rising unemployment. Reinforcing manufacturers' problems relatively muted global growth is capping foreign demand for Eurozone goods. On top of this, the heightened problems in Greece and Spain are magnifying manufacturers' problems by adding to uncertainty about the outlook.

It's official -- the eurozone manufacturing sector just suffered its worst month since June 2009.

Following weak data from France, Germany and Spain (see previous posts) the total manufacturing PMI came in at 45.1, down from 45.9 in April, which means the sector contracted at a faster rate.

Indeed, only two countries didn't see their manufacturing sector shrink - Austria, and Ireland.

A double-whammy of bad data from France and Germany has shown that the Eurozone economy is in seriously bad shape.

Both countries posted their weakest manufacturing output in three years, with output shrinking at a faster rate in May

Markit reported that the French manufacturing PMI dropped to 44.7 in May, down from 46.9 in April.

The Germany manufacturing PMI was almost as weak, coming in at 45.2.

The poor data should extinguish any doubts that the Eurozone economic crisis was hitting core countries, as well as the periphery.

Today's manufacturing data from Italy is slightly more encouraging - unlike Spain and China, it's PMI actually rose in May. However, the sector is still shrinking (just at a slower pace).

Markit reported that the Italian manufacturing PMI came in at 44.8, up from April's 43.8. That still means that the sector has shrunk for the last 10 months. Unemployment also fell for 10th consecutive month.

Spain's factory sector suffered a serious decline in May, data just released showed.

Output fell at its fastest rate in three years, according to Markit, which reported that the Spanish manufacturing PMI dropped to 42, down from 43.5, indicating a deeper contraction.

Indeed, that's the weakest figure since May 2009, and means Spain's manufacturing base has now been shrinking since April 2011.

In another blow to a country already gripped by record jobless data, employment continued to fall as manufacturers restructured workforces in response to lower demand. Markit warned that:

The rate of job shedding intensified from that seen in April.

The big news overnight on the global economy is that China's manufacturing sector – one of the key engines of growth in the world economy – performed much worse than expected last month.

The official Chinese purchasing managers' index (PMI)* fell to 50.4 in May, much lower than April's 53.3. That puts it close to the 50-point mark that splits expansion from contraction.

More worryingly still, a separate PMI survey conducted by HSBC came in at 48.4 in May, down from April's 49.3, indicating that the sector had deteriorated last month. HSBC's data suggests China's manufacturing sector has been contracting for the last seven months:

Analysts at IHS Global Insight said the data showed China is suffering its biggest economic slowdown since in two years, adding:

This indicates significant downside risk in the economy.

* - PMIs measure output, based on interviews with business people across an industry. We'll be hearing a lot about them today...

Despite the low turnout in yesterday's referendum, the feeling today is still that the Irish will vote Yes to the fiscal pact.

That's partly due to reports overnight of a 'secret' government exit poll that predicted a Yes victory by more than 60% to 40% (more here)

But as we reported in yesterday's blog, there was little enthusiasm for the EU on display yesterday.

We should get an indication of the likely result this morning, when estimated voting data from the 43 constituencies come out.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the eurozone financial crisis.

Coming up today … Ireland is counting the votes from yesterday's referendum on whether to sign up for Europe's fiscal compact. With turnout likely to be a record low, the result should come this afternoon.

Elsewhere in Europe, fears over Spain's banks still dominate the agenda, following a report yesterday that €97bn of capital left the country in the first three months of 2012.

For Greece, it's another day of electioneering – and the last day on which opinion poll data can be published.

And it's a very big day for economic data. Surveys from around the world will show the state of global manufacturing. The Asian results are out, and are not good (more shortly).

Also, new unemployment data for both the eurozone and America will be released today.