Brussels, 24/08/2011 (Agence Europe) - The MEPs on the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee have decided to cut short their summer break and hold a special meeting in Brussels on Monday 29 August 2011, to be attended by the Presidents of Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet, and the latter's successor in November, Mario Draghi, Polish Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski and EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn, to discuss the decisions taken at the eurozone summit at the end of last month and negotiations over changes to the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP).
The MEPs and representatives of the member states went on holiday at the start of July without having sorted out the last outstanding issue preventing introduction of the six items of legislation to boost economic governance in Europe. On the preventative arm of the SGP, the EP wants a greater degree of automatic penalties to be introduced in decision-making, but this is rejected by the member states, which want to leave themselves wriggle room. Over the summer holidays, informal talks were held between the Polish Presidency, the European Commission and the EP and last week, Polish Prime Minister Donald Trump said that the Polish Presidency was taking action to ensure the six items of legislation can be adopted by the European Parliament. For the moment, however, no inter-institutional negotiating meetings have yet been booked. The Polish Presidency is taking a pragmatic approach and refuses to suggest a date that might create expectations and end up being counter-productive. A diplomat said that it was hoped the meeting would take place ahead of the September plenary but that meant that the EP would have to be in a position to vote on it and he hoped that mindsets would have evolved over the summer.
Apart from the EPP, the EP's political parties oppose the dropping of the “reverse qualified majority” procedure for the preventative arm of the SGP, whereby a qualified majority of countries would be required to reject any recommendation by the European Commission noting that a country had not taken the measures required to deal with its deficits or debt. In return for dropping “reverse qualified majority”, the Council of Ministers has suggested setting out in a public document the reasons why it will not follow a recommendation from the Commission. The EP is keeping a close eye on any Council of Ministers' statements. French Liberal Sylvie Goulard, EP rapporteur on the legislation in question, hopes that the Franco-German statement last week about the need to take preventative action on budget matters marks a change in France's view, but warns against empty words that are not followed by any tangible commitment to action.
Suggestions from France and Germany. Ideas set out by France and Germany last week aim to boost economic governance and budget surveillance and governance in the eurozone, but have divided MEPs (see EUROPE 10436). On behalf of the EPP, Joseph Daul said that the solution to the problems was more European convergence, not less, and hoped that economic governance and correction of public finance could be achieved through constitutional reforms. He said that the EPP had been calling for months for genuine economic convergence on tax, the budget and social affairs in the eurozone and said the group would be looking at how eurobonds could help make the eurozone more stable.
The Social Democrats slam the lack of ambition of the French and Germany ideas, along with the way they have been introduced, trying to force the ideas on the other countries. The chair of the S&D group, Martin Schulz, said that, once again, France and Germany were looking down their noses at the rest of the eurozone and deciding for everyone. Once again, he said, they had come up with too little, too late. Although the idea about a tax on financial transactions is a good idea, he said France and Germany were ignoring solutions that could bring real hope, like the introduction of eurobonds, and ignoring measures that might stimulate growth and jobs.
The chair of the ALDE group, former prime minister of Belgium Guy Verhofstadt welcomed France and Germany's desire to introduce economic government of the eurozone although he said that this should take the form of a small cabinet of Commissioners within the European Commission, headed by the Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner. This cabinet would chair the Eurogroup and would have at its disposal tools, such as pooling of debt by issuing eurobonds, strict public deficit rules and a common economic convergence plan for all eurozone countries. This, he said, would be a great leap forward and a move in the direction of a federal EU, which he described as a necessary move. (M.B./transl.fl)