Brussels, 17/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, in an interview with the daily Die Welt on Monday 17 October, showed himself to be less than enthusiastic over calls for the treaties to be amended in order to help prevent future crises.
“I would be very careful about such projects … a lot can be done with the treaties as they stand. We should use these possibilities rather than consider new treaties”, he postulated. At the very most, he would consider “adjustments”, but he made the point that “referendums on the current treaty in 2005 resulted in failure”.
France and Germany are not opposed to possible treaty amendment, but remain cautious. France says it is flexible but takes the view, in short, that the eurozone now needs short-term measures to reassure financial markets. Germany feels that institutional amendment must not be a taboo subject, especially if this amendment brings stronger budgetary discipline.
Inter-governmental/Community method. Up until this point, the finance and economy ministers of the euro area countries have met in the Eurogroup, under the chairmanship of Jean-Claude Juncker, himself a euro area economy minister. The question is whether the current system should be retained or whether a new way of doing things should be found. This leads on to a debate on the inter-governmental method versus the Community method. The Netherlands and Commission President José Manuel Barroso, for example, hold the view that economic government of the eurozone exists with the Commission at the helm. The Netherlands and Germany are proposing the creation of a post of European commissioner with enhanced powers to ensure compliance with the stability and growth pact. On Sunday 16 October, European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet made comments along roughly similar lines. He called for reform of the European treaties to strengthen the integration of the eurozone.
Governance of the eurozone. France and Germany want European Council President Herman Van Rompuy to assume the role of coordinating the discussions of the euro area (of economic governance). This would not necessarily require a change to the treaties. The agreement of the European Council would be sufficient. In fact, such a move would merely confirm what is already happening, as Van Rompuy has hitherto chaired the eurozone summits.
France is not against the idea of eurobonds, but only at the end of a process of convergence, not at the start - that is to say, not before there has been put in place a converging economic policy among the 27 member states, covering not only deficits and expenditure (stability and growth pact, enhanced euro plus pact, economic governance package) but also on tax matters. “We cannot ask a country which has a triple A rating to use its triple A to finance collective indebtedness, if there is no fiscal convergence”, a French source said. Fiscal convergence is not to be expected any time soon, however, given that such issues require decisions to be taken unanimously. Germany is against such a system of pooling euro area debt, fearing, in summary, that it may lead to budgetary laxity. (LC/transl.rt)