Brussels, 12/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - Eastern European member states which are not members of the eurozone expressed their displeasure on Monday 12 September at being sidelined in the on-going debate on the reform of the monetary union and have threatened to put their membership of the European Union up for public approval by referendum.
A meeting of the European affairs ministers of the seven countries concerned - Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Lithuania and Latvia - to discuss this issue took place in Brussels on Monday on the sidelines of the General Affairs Council. These countries joined the EU in 2004 or in 2007, and with accession came the obligation to join the euro when ready.
However, the on-going debates, driven by France and Germany in particular, on reform of the governance of the euro area to draw the lessons of the debt crisis, are causing them increasing irritation. They feel that they are being sidelined even though they will, at some point, be affected by what is decided.
“All seven countries agree that a change in the legislative framework of the euro area could affect the conditions of the accession treaties” which brought them membership of the EU, “and could mean that once again they would have to hold referendums” on their membership of the EU, says a diplomatic source close to discussions, quoted by AFP. They requested, too, that those of their number who wished be allowed to join discussions on possible reform of the eurozone, the source added.
In mid-August, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed that genuine economic governance of the euro area be put in place to ensure that the national economic policies of the 17 members of the monetary union work in harmony with one another and that budget discipline does not fail. To bring this about, Germany would amend the Lisbon Treaty.
France and Germany want to see harmonisation of budgetary policies, such as business tax. Also planned is a permanent forum of heads of state or government of the countries of the eurozone, chaired by Herman Van Rompuy and with a small administrative organisation.
According to diplomatic sources, the idea would also be to make the Eurogroup more powerful by putting in place a permanent president, when Jean-Claude Juncker's term of office comes to and end in mid-2012. There have been calls for the euro area to take a “federalist” leap towards a form of budgetary union, with its own finance minister. The Netherlands has argued that, as a last resort, it should be possible to expel from the euro area any countries which are not sufficiently strict on the budgetary level. (L.C./transl.rt)