Brussels, 05/12/2011 (Agence Europe) -German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be submitting to the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, on Wednesday 7 December a “full Franco-German agreement” on a range of subjects to put an end to the debt crisis. Both countries want agreement in March 2012 on the need for a new EU treaty.
To prepare for the Thursday 8 and Friday 9 December European summit, Merkel went to visit Sarkozy in Paris on Monday, with the French president making concessions to Germany by saying that the idea of eurobonds being put forward by the European Parliament and a number of eurozone countries, but rejected by Germany, was not an option. Sarkozy said that France and Germany totally agreed that eurobonds could not be a solution to the crisis because if debts were pooled, then he did not see how other countries could be encouraged to make the savings being introduced right now.
The same show of unity was forthcoming for governance, with France and Germany calling for a harmonised, stronger “golden rule” at EU levels to ensure that each member state's constitutional court was able to ensure that budgets were moving towards equilibrium, explained Sarkozy in a press conference with Merkel in Paris. Merkel said the European Court of Justice should be given the power in a new treaty to ensure that each country was implementing the golden rule, but should not be able to declare a budget nul and void. She said a new EU treaty should be signed by all 27 member states, if possible, or by all eurozone nations and any other country that wanted to join them. Sarkozy said he hoped a new treaty would be signed in March 2012 and ratified after the French general and presidential elections in the spring of next year as a necessary step for restoring confidence in the euro and the eurozone. He said that automatic penalties would be applied to EU member states whose public deficit is above 3% of GDP. He said France and Germany wanted immediate penalties for failing to meet the rule of keeping public deficits below 3% of GDP, as stated in the Lisbon Treaty.
Eurozone summit once a month?
During the crisis, France and Germany want a eurozone summit every month, with a detailed agenda focusing on the need to boost growth in the eurozone.
France and Germany want the permanent eurozone bailout fund to start up in 2012 rather than 2013, as planned to date, and for decisions on the new fund, known as the European Stability Mechanism, to be taken by majority voting rather than unanimously, said Sarkozy. European Stability Mechanism decisions should be taken by qualified majority voting on 85% of countries' contributions to the ESM, said Sarkozy.
Poland says greater governance of eurozone must not cause divisions in the EU
Boosting economic convergence in the eurozone must not be allowed to damage the cohesion of the European Union, warned the Polish Presidency of the Council of the EU at the same time as Merkozy were saying they wanted a new treaty. In a press release described as food for common thought, the Polish Presidency said that stronger economic governance in the eurozone should lead to a stronger European Union.
The process must not set up structures that exclude countries and might deepen potential divisions, but should on the contrary bring people together and be based on a will to cooperate and respect for existing rules, adds the Presidency.
In the press release, Poland's European affairs minister, Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, said this meant that a coherent, inclusive governance structure needed to be introduced across the whole of the EU.
Poland, which is chairing the Council of the EU until January, is not a member of the eurozone but wants to join. In the press release, Mikolaj Dowgielewicz called for the 10 EU member states that are not in the euro to be able to attend debates about monetary union (without the right to vote), particularly at summits of heads of state and meetings of eurozone finance ministers, and to be informed along the way of each stage in the process of preparing for the eurozone summits. For several months now, Poland and the UK have been leading an offensive by non-euro member states, which have been complaining about being left out of eurozone decision-making due to the polarisation of debate about the ways and means for solving the debt crisis. (LC/transl.fl)