Brussels, 03/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - Talks on strengthening Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) shift up a gear at a meeting of member states' sherpas on Thursday afternoon to decide on the scope of measures to boost budget and macroeconomic surveillance at EU level, to increase solidarity among eurozone countries in particular and boost the democratic legitimacy of the deeper European integration process as a way of dealing with the sovereign debt crisis. The meeting takes place after a series of meetings over the past fortnight between the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, and each member state individually.
Issues to be discussed on Thursday include the setting up of “mechanisms to prevent unsustainable budgetary developments as well as mechanisms for fiscal solidarity, e.g. via an appropriate fiscal capacity,” explains a preparatory document laying down guidelines for drafting European Summit conclusions documents unveiled on Wednesday by the Financial Times. The document says: “The idea for the Euro area member states to enter into individual contractual arrangements with the European level on the reforms they commit to undertake and their implementation should be explored. One should explore the possibility of supporting member states' reform efforts with limited, temporary, flexible and targeted financial incentives; and strong mechanisms for democratic legitimacy and accountability are necessary. One of the guiding principles in this context is to ensure that democratic control and accountability are effected at the level at which the decisions are taken.”
On Tuesday, the Member States' National Representatives to the EU welcomed the guidelines that they had been sent on Monday. They are determined to ensure the European Summit sends out a message of commitment and demonstrates its ability to achieve tangible results. Some member states, however, said that the document was unbalanced, wanting more references to the importance of growth stimulus (the growth package adopted by the June 2012 European Summit under pressure from France), employment (particularly jobs for young people) and energy policy.
Before they send in their interim reports on Friday 12 October, the presidents of the European Council and European Commission, Herman Van Rompuy and José Manuel Barroso respectively, and the head of Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, will meet up on Tuesday 9 October, the same day as an ECOFIN Council that will be discussing financial integration. They will be joined by Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament.
The Parliament stresses the democratic legitimacy of this process.
On Tuesday, the Parliament set the tone by adopting a negotiating mandate for expansion of EMU. Any further integration at EU level should go hand-in-hand with stronger democratic legitimacy for the EU, said Martin Schulz, Elmar Brok (EPP, Germany), Roberto Gualtieri (S&D, Italy), Guy Verhofstadt (ADLE, Belgium) and Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Greens/EFA, Germany), who will be representing the Parliament at the inter-institutional talks.
The mandate for the latter four MEPs is three-pronged. The integration process must not lead to splits within the EU. Verhofstadt criticised the attitude of certain member states which, under pressure from the markets, are blocking any progress. Schulz said that politics had to win back the trust of both citizens and the markets. The second approach is that the Parliament must play a key role in scrutinising existing and new mechanisms like the European Semester, ESM and Banking Union. The Parliament president described the attempts to bypass the only European institution elected by universal suffrage as a matter of concern. The third approach is insistence on respect of the Community Method, with codecision being the only viable decision-making process as far as the Parliament is concerned.
According to MEPs, the European treaties will inevitably have to change in the medium-term in order to fine-tune EMU, but they stress that much can be done under the present treaty, such as making greater use of enhanced cooperation, especially in the fiscal domain (a financial transaction tax, for example). EMU would have everything to gain from greater cooperation between the European Parliament and national parliaments and, ahead of the European elections in 2014, European political parties should be urged to present their leaders as candidates for the next president of the European Commission (see EUROPE 10700).
Setting up Banking Union, a common eurozone bank supervision system under the aegis of the ECB, would be a first step, and this should be accompanied by common bank bailout and savings guarantee systems, ahead of the introduction of a European bank restructuring authority. (MB and EL/transl.fl)