Brussels, 06/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - France is the first eurozone country to ratify the second Greek bailout, along with expansion of the powers of the European bailout fund, the EFSF, which will be able to buy up struggling countries' bonds and lend cash to enable countries to bail out their banks. On Tuesday 6 September, the French economy minister, François Baroin, said that France trusted the Greek government to implement the economic plan needed to win support from Europe and the International Monetary Fund. There is political consensus in France about the fact that Greece has to be backed and the EFSF needs more teeth. In Germany, however, Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a group of parliamentarians in her own party and the Liberal Party (part of the coalition government) who oppose any new Greek bailout. Last month, Germany and France called for ratification by the end of September of all the decisions taken by the emergency eurozone summit on 21 July (see EUROPE 10424 and 10436).
Will Slovakia, which did not provide any cash for the first Greek bailout, but is contributing to the second, ratify the decisions within the deadline set by the two biggest eurozone countries? Richard Sulik, leader of the Liberty and Solidarity party (part of the centre-right Slovakian government) says that the decisions will not be ratified in Slovakia until December. The Slovakian finance minister, Ivan Miklos, however, says that any delay would be counterproductive. The European Commission says that speedy ratification is needed in the interest of both the EU and Slovakia.
Stability and Growth Pact. Along with implementing the decisions taken in July, the European Commission is putting pressure on the Council of the EU and the European Parliament to finalise the talks on changes to the Stability and Growth Pact, which are in deadlock over decision-making in the SGP's crisis prevention aspects (see EUROPE 10442). A spokesperson for EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said that the Commission had unveiled the draft legislation a year ago and a negotiator told this newsletter that people are getting hot under the collar and people would obviously have to make concessions. The Polish Presidency is due to unveil suggestions mooted by France that do not include the EP's demand for more automatic decision-making, suggestions rejected by some MEPs, led by the liberals. The EP rapporteurs will be meeting on Wednesday to discuss the matter. The vote at the EP plenary (the conclusion of the talks) will clearly not be taking place next week!
Like several former European leaders, the Commission feels that the Lisbon Treaty does not go far enough when it comes to economic governance and the debt crisis (see EUROPE 10445). On Tuesday, a Commission spokesperson said that the current treaties provided far more opportunities to expand economic governance and introduce more effective economic coordination and an amendment is being ratified that will allow the creation of a European Stability Mechanism for 2013. If a new treaty is needed to ensure deeper integration, then the member states will have to look into this, but at the moment, this is purely hypothetical, explained the rapporteur, not commenting on the creation of eurobonds - a fashionable idea that the Commission favours - which requires changes to the treaty. In Paris on Monday, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, and the man taking over from him in November, Mario Draghi, said that greater peer review of economic and budget policies required a new EU treaty.
“Collateral”. The president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, was in Berlin on Monday evening to meet Angela Merkel and see how she reacted to some of his ideas about boosting economic governance - ideas to be set down on paper this month. Later in the day, he was in Helsinki, where he defended the Finnish demand for guarantees in exchange for providing funding to Greece as part of the second Greek bailout. The eurozone summit statement in which the demand is made is, he said, a document agreed upon in common, all paragraphs of which have to be implemented, he explained (according to a report by Bloomberg). (M.B./transl.fl)