Paris, 29/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - We cannot point to a single factor which is responsible for the crisis we are experiencing today and for the “widespread panic” it has caused, but the European leaders must take their share of the blame for not acting quickly enough. The system which has been built around the monetary union is biased in its current construction, because it has no real economic governance, said Jacques Delors, former president of the European Commission, at the extraordinary meeting of Group II (Workers' Group) of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), which was held in Paris on Tuesday 29 November.
The economic and monetary union must be able to go further in its integration and “increase both its personality and the resources available to it” by means of the reinforced cooperation mechanism, for example, Delors suggested. This would make it possible not to require a consensus of the 27 for every initiative and to create, for instance, a “financial regulation instrument” for the eurozone. “Differentiation between the eurozone and the 27” is inevitable and indispensable to allow the EU to “be able to function”. This distinction “should have been drawn long ago”, but not doing so is “convenient and makes it possible to avoid annoying the 10 states which are not in the economic and monetary union”, Jacques Delors lamented.
Today, “nobody is any longer a master of anything” and at the same time, the union surrounding the euro has to face two challenges: it does not have a pillar for financial stability (however, Delors rejected the idea of creating a eurozone finance minister, arguing that the number of “Presidents” and “High Representatives” is already the source of quite enough confusion) and that the remit of the European Central Bank (ECB) is far too limited. Today, we need just as many “firefighters” as we do “architects”, in order, on the one hand, to implement projects, such as the (at least partial) pooling of debt, in other words the ECB issuing eurobonds in order to stabilise the situation on the financial markets, and on the other, to build a European system which is based on a “model which includes prevention, common actions and sanctions”.
The European leaders, however, acting in a certain “cacophony which is terrorising the markets”, are now focusing too much on sanctions alone, although these are vital in order to make “progress”. Prevention has been lacking, even though the signs of a structural problem and uncontrolled sovereign debts in certain states were already visible in 2005 and 2006. “It is all the same appalling that the governors of the Central Bank did not wonder amongst themselves whether the indebtedness was not growing excessive in Spain” or elsewhere, said the former Commission president. Finally, the response to the current crisis cannot be provided by traditional growth recovery policies. The case of Greece illustrates this perfectly, an approach described by Delors as likely to lead to “dying cured”. The recovery must include a strong European component. This is not the case today, which could eventually render the EU powerless and even threaten European integration. (JK/transl.fl)