Brussels, 15/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 16 and Friday 17 December, the European Council chaired by Herman Van Rompuy will resume talks on a permanent system for ensuring financial stability in the eurozone and restricted changes to the European Treaty to make it possible to introduce such a system. At the working session on the afternoon on Wednesday 15 December, after meeting the president of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, the heads of state of the 27 EU member states should examine a conclusions document prepared by eurozone finance ministers at a meeting in Brussels on 27 and 28 November. The politicians should endorse a document prepared by Van Rompuy on changes to be made to the Treaty. Close sources suggest the business part of the document contains a single paragraph.
In the evening, the EU27 leaders will have a working meeting with the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Jean-Claude Trichet, where they will discuss current economic developments. On Friday morning, EU High Representative for European Foreign and Security Policy Catherine Ashton will brief the European Council on her latest dialogue with the European Union's strategic partners and work in progress on assessing the EU's relations. She will make a progress report on relations with the United States, Russia and China. At the March 2011 European Council, she will speak about Ukraine, India and Brazil. This December's summit should decide whether Montenegro should be granted EU applicant country status. Press conferences are being organised for Thursday evening, around 10.00pm, and Friday afternoon, around 1.00pm.
Most of the above is set out in the invitation letter from Van Rompuy to the heads of state, where he makes it clear that the main issue on the agenda will be the draft changes to the EU Treaty, a precondition for setting up a permanent eurozone financial stability mechanism. The draft document will then need to be approved by the European Commission, the European Parliament and the Assembly of the Regions of Europe, before returning to the European Council for formal approval in March 2011. At that point, the ratification procedure will kick off, in the hope that the changes to the Treaty can come into force on 1 January 2013. The summit will ask finance ministers to look into the details of the mechanism with a view to it being up and running by June 2013, when the current temporary mechanism runs out. It will therefore be the EU's finance ministers that will decide on the role of the private sector in the new set-up and the idea of creating eurobonds, although both issues may also be addressed by heads of state at this week's summit. The head of the Eurogroup (the eurozone finance ministers' group) Jean-Claude Juncker, wants eurobonds to be discussed. Juncker and Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti back the idea, but Germany and France have recently expressed opposition.
There will be no need for heads of state to discuss the EU's budget for 2011 because it was formally settled by a vote at the European Parliament on Wednesday 15 December endorsing a compromise document approved by the EU Council of Ministers.
European Parliament to be informed - Speaking on behalf of the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council at the European Parliament on Wednesday 15 December, Olivier Chastel said that the European Council would issue proposals for consolidating the economic and monetary side of the European Union. The economic crisis had shown the need for changes to Article 136 of the EU Treaty to set up a special system. Further measures to deal with the economic crisis include creating an economic governance working group and proper implementation of the EU 2020 strategy.
The president of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, said agreement on a permanent eurozone sovereignty debt crisis management system and a change to the Treaty would send a clear signal of support for the European project. Addressing the European Parliament, he said that the Commission had reacted well to the crisis, but long-term, solidarity-based reforms were needed if ordinary citizens were to rebuild their trust. The main areas of reform will be consolidating public finance beyond merely consolidating the budget in order to sow the seeds of future growth; examining the banking system to make sure that banks provide proper finance for the real economy; and setting up a permanent eurozone stability mechanism, the details of which are to be decided on over the next few weeks. He said there was consensus over the need to make restricted changes to the EU Treaty over a specific issue and it should therefore be possible to act quickly and resist the temptation of complicating the discussions. Barroso said that the eurobond idea was nothing new and other financial mechanisms already existed whose potential had not yet been fully used. He said that the idea should not be nipped in the bud but work should focus on solutions that can be rapidly introduced. (L.G./Gp/transl.fl)