Brussels, 08/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 13 June, the European Parliament will vote in plenary on two draft regulations (the “two-pack”) updating the Stability and Growth Pact (see EUROPE 10615). On Friday 8 June, Jean-Paul Gauzès (EPP, France), rapporteur on one of the regulations, told this newsletter that he was the one who had arranged for the plenary vote. He said that at the economic and monetary affairs committee, the four big political parties had agreed, but the Socialists had abstained although they had achieved everything they had been after. Gauzès said he didn't want to enter negotiations with the Council of Ministers with so many abstentions, and had arranged that the EP would do what it did with the recent changes to the EU's financial system and vote solely on the amendments, in order to give the rapporteurs a clear negotiating mandate for the talks with the member states. It will not pass any legislative resolutions and will therefore not end the first reading under the co-decision procedure.
Rather than the Gauzès Report (adopted by the EP committee by a comfortable majority), it is the Ferreira Report that the political parties are divided over, particularly (1) coordination of national debt emission, (2) setting up a redemption fund to temporarily pool eurozone nations' excess debt (see EUROPE 10624) and (3) setting up a financial tool to mobilise nearly 1% of EU GDP over ten years, which would be used to back investment. The EPP, ALDE and Greens/EFA are not planning to amend the reports ahead of the plenary vote, but the S&D has decided to lodge an amendment to introduce a golden rule for investment in order to ensure that eurozone nations continue to invest in key growth areas without abandoning budget discipline. The French Socialists dislike the redemption fund idea because they want to give a positive view of the pooling of debt rather than focus on excess debt accumulated in the past. (MB/transl.fl)