Brussels, 15/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 15 February, the Commission adopted a favourable opinion on the limited amendment of Article 136 of the Lisbon Treaty agreed by the European Council in December 2010 so that permanent European Stability Mechanism (ESM) can be put in place with effect from 2013. Amendment of the Treaty will be carried out according to the simplified procedure (Article 48(6) of the Treaty) which states that the Commission, the European Parliament (EP) and the European Central Bank (ECB) need only to be consulted. Commission President José Manuel Barroso presented the opinion to the EP in Strasbourg on Tuesday afternoon. The EP is preparing its own opinion which is scheduled for adoption in March. Amendment of the Treaty is an “indispensable decision” and action is urgently required to “defend our common currency and ensure financial stability in the face of the imbalances in the economies of some member states”, Barroso said. He insisted, however, that the Treaty must be complied with and that the Commission would take all the steps necessary “to ensure the coherence of the future stability mechanism (Ed.: which is largely inter-governmental in nature) and the EU's economic governance within the euro area”. The Commission would certainly have preferred the permanent mechanism to have had a Community approach but that was not sufficient reason for it to oppose amendment of the Treaty, Barroso said, especially as “this new step does not reduce the current powers of the EU and its institutions”, rather it “increases the EU's collective ability to respond to challenges not expressly provided for in the Treaty”. (H.B./transl.rt)