Involvement in economic and monetary affairs. The Lisbon Treaty innovation, which allocated the European Council the role and responsibilities of a Community institution (with the opportunity of majority voting on certain subjects, including the nomination of its permanent president) proves that there is a gradual but real revolution going. This column has on many occasions opposed certain attitudes of doom-mongering and scepticism affirming that everything is rotten in the state of Europe and that the Lisbon Treaty is a failure (just a few weeks after its entry into force! - and while the European Parliament is making its new powers felt on a daily basis, as well as its determination and ability to use these powers!) and I have no intention of going over the general issue again. Nonetheless, the striking confirmation of the direct involvement of heads of state and government in the Union does need to be underlined.
On this occasion, it is economic and monetary affairs that are at stake, from a double point of view: the attitude of the Union in the face of the Greek crisis; governance of the euro involving the tightening up of discipline and, above all, the significance and organisation of economic governance. Two factors confirm the direct involvement of heads of state and government; the letter from President Herman Van Rompuy on the European Council session programme for this Thursday and Friday and the possibility of a Eurogroup meeting at the same level on Thursday.
Explicit questions. Mr Van Rompuy has indicated that Thursday evening will focus on “economic government” (this time, he did not hesitate to use these terms) and the coordination of economic policies. He also made an explicit reference to aspects which have not been sufficiently covered by the Stability Pact and indicated what issues he intended to examine: supervision of budgetary deficits, already included in principle, but will it need to be completed by competitive monitoring? Will this exercise be limited to updating the appropriate indicators or will it also cover the detection of divergences and alternative measures? Will member states have to make a commitment to taking these aspects into consideration in their national economic policies? These are the questions which, at a Community level, were at least discussed by ministers for the economy and finance.
Parallel lines. The Eurogroup summit will focus on the same problems within the eurozone (see our publication yesterday), particularly what line to take with regard to Greece. It will obviously take into account the results of the meetings that took place on Tuesday (held an hour earlier in the evening) between Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy on the nature and modalities of financial support for Greece and IMF participation in this support, in addition to, above all, the future: tightening up the discipline in the Stability Pact and sanctions against states that fail to respect the criteria. Could these sanctions go as far as excluding a country from the eurozone? It should be emphasised that the sanctions system should not involve what is currently going on with Greece, which involves dealing with the here and now whereas revision and reinforcement of the rules require clearly set-out deadlines. Yet as far as Germany is concerned, a political agreement in principle should be parallel to the co-ordinated interventions taken to support Greece. France, in any case, considers it inappropriate and practically impossible to include provisions that would involve revision of the Lisbon Treaty.
The “economic government”. It should be pointed out that the Eurogroup only met once at a level of heads of state and government in 2008, in exceptional circumstances. With regard to the European Council, the questions Mr Van Rompuy will be raising were, until yesterday, discussed at the Ecofin Council. The direct and regular involvement of national leaders is fundamental because it has repercussions not only on how the EU works (which becomes “the economic government of the Union”, its president declared) but also within the member states themselves) because heads of governments will be more aware of European affairs (which was not always the case) and will regularly debate and more effectively defend the orientations and measures (at a national level) in which they have participated and for which they will be responsible. I repeat: this is a revolution.
(F.R./transl.fl)