Brussels, 23/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - EU leaders agreed on Sunday 23 October to discuss possible changes to the EU treaty to improve the functioning of the eurozone and, in particular, enhance budgetary discipline.
It was decided to “explore the option of limited treaty change”, stated Council President Herman Van Rompuy, who has been charged with drafting a report. Such a change cannot be made, however, without the agreement of all 27 member states, he made clear. In its conclusions, the Council notes the intention of the heads of state or government of the euro area to discuss further strengthening of economic convergence within the euro area, improving fiscal discipline and deepening economic union, including exploring the possibility of limited treaty changes. The Council notes that any Treaty change must be decided by the 27 member states. The European Council will return to the issue in December on the basis of a report by the president of the European Council in close collaboration with the president of the Commission and the president of the Eurogroup.
“Limited treaty change means that is not a complete recasting of the institutional architecture set out by the Lisbon Treaty”, said Van Rompuy, arguing, above all, for increased economic governance of the monetary union. With the debt crisis, this has shown itself to be ineffective. “What is important is not the revision of the treaties as such. … The aim is to deepen our economic union and strengthen our budgetary discipline”, he said.
Thus it would appear that the European Union is moving in the direction wanted by Germany, which has been arguing for treaty amendment to beef up budgetary discipline and ensure that all member states are rigorous and do not allow their public deficits to run out of control. “We looked at how to strengthen budgetary discipline. On this, we said explicitly that changes to the treaty cannot be ruled out”, commented German Chancellor Angela Merkel. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle went as far as to suggest on Saturday that countries which are not sufficiently tough with regard to ther budgets should be referred to the European Court of Justice. Finnish European Affairs Minister Alexander Stubb wanted the Commission to be given the same powers to ensure that member states observe budgetary discipline as it has to ensure that companies abide by single market competition rules. “We need a strong budget commissioner, a sort of budget tsar, who has similar powers over national budgets as those currently held by the competition commissioner over companies”, he said. Other countries, without necessarily sharing the wishes of Germany, called for a revision of the treaties. Some pushed for a review of the treaties in order to put in place Eurobonds which would mean that debt within the eurozone could be pooled. Luxembourg was sceptical, fearing that tinkering with the treaty would be like “opening a Pandora's box”. “We mustn't open a further battle front”, warned Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte welcomed that fact that, in the conclusions, all 27 member states agreed to open the debate on strengthening the role of the “competent” commissioner for closer monitoring and additional enforcement. This line in the conclusion echoes the idea, first enunciated by Rutte and his Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager in September, of granting the most appropriate commissioner sanctioning powers in order to ensure greater budgetary discipline by member states. The widened area of responsibility of this commissioner would include the power to impose graduated penalties on countries that are not tough enough on their budgets (and this would not require a treaty change).
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said: “We all agreed that it is necessary to have stricter preventive control so the type of crisis we are currently experiencing never again hits the eurozone. We also agreed that we have to find an institutional way to amend the treaty, but without determining the extent or the speed of the changes”. The idea would be, for instance, to “force greater budgetary discipline from certain countries of the eurozone”. “There is no great enthusiasm today for these changes, but there was a political need and we respected it”, he stated.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron said that change to the treaty could only happen if all 27 countries were in agreement. It may be necessary to have limited treaty change as well as measures to integrate economies, he added. (LC/MB/CG/AN/JK/MD/transl.rt)