Eurozone finance minister's will be locked in talks from 5.30pm this evening about how best to proceed with a bailout for Cyprus after nearly 9 months of stalled negotiations.

The Mediterranean state is most likely to raise its corporate tax rate from 10% to 12.5% as part of the rescue deal to be finalised tonight.

The Irish government will monitor the appetite amongst fellow eurozone states for such a precedent, considering the months of tense and animated discussions the Taoiseach fought during discussions about Ireland's corporate tax rate back in 2011.

A number of other measures such as privatisation of state bodies and agreement to introduce the EU's financial transaction tax are also on the table.

Cyprus' liquidity problem is has largely due to the country's significant exposure to Greek debt; it was forced to take a write down of over 50% on its bond holdings in the new deal agreed with Greece last year.
Negotiations regarding the restructuring of a €2.5 billion bi-lateral loan from Russia are taking place separately with the hope for an extension of the due date.

Meanwhile, technocrats from the European Commission, ECB and IMF including Managing Director Christine Lagarde continue to thrash out an agreement estimated to be €10 billion are likely to last into Saturday morning.
The issue of tax harmonisation has been put on the back burner for a number of months as eurozone states struggle to grapple with continuous crises. However, deeper talks regarding closer economic and political coordination and union, particularly amongst eurozone states is likely to restart in the next year where discussions about tax harmonisation such as the 'CCCTB' will get underway.