Brussels, 18/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - “I told Herman Van Rompuy on Wednesday that what my report says about his Governance Taskforce's report is true only in part,” commented Mario Monti of the University of Bocconi in Milan, addressing the extraordinary AGM of the Confrontations Europe association in Brussels on Thursday 18 November. He explained that when people say that dealing with the economic pillar of the European Union is part of economic governance - that simply not true.
In a talk entitled “Vers un pacte pour le grand marché européen”, the former EU competition commissioner Mario Monti explained that the economic pillar of Economic and Monetary Union has two parts: (1) a structure - it is Economic Union and it is the Single Market that makes up most of Economic Union. The taskforce's work should not apply here; and (2) political governance of currencies, where Van Rompuy's taskforce is doing great work. “We see a vacuum in the most fashionable area of work at the moment - a serious, logical, political and practical vacuum”, said Monti, explaining that there had been an offer to fill this vacuum for work on the Single Market, but this has not yet been fully taken up and hence the vacuum continues and there is an error in interpreting the balance of supply and demand.
On the importance of introducing the Single Market (also highlighted by Lord Leon Brittan (trade adviser to the British prime minister) who stressed the social dimension of the Single Market and the role of small business as engines of the economy), Mario Monti set out two ideas from his report: (1) Introducing benchmarks on the duration of procedures and (2) A more ambitious idea of how to align efficiency and speed in implementation procedures in the Single Market domain. He explained that it takes years to remove any breaches of EU legislation in the Single Market. It is a three-stage procedure. Firstly, the Commission sends a reasoned opinion, then the case is taken to the European Court of Justice and finally the Court of Justice issues a ruling. It takes years and is quite ridiculous, he added. Surely at a time when everyone is talking about opening up the new treaty to further debate, surely it would make more sense to put something in the treaty to help companies take the Single Market more seriously as the genuine economic pillar of EMU, concluded Mario Monti. (G. B./transl.fl)