Brussels, 03/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Social Democrats at the European Parliament are getting ready for a tense first half of the year in the reflection on the future of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), with the presentation of the report by the '4 Presidents' at the June European Council in their sights.
What needs to be done to strengthen economic governance is no secret, but there is no willingness to work on the long term, as so many urgent decisions are required to keep the eurozone afloat, Pervenche Berès (S&D, France) told a small group of journalists on Tuesday 3 March.
In order to position the European Parliament in the debate, the French Socialist is heading up the drafting of an own-initiative report on the challenges of economic governance, which will be adopted in mid-April by the economic and monetary affairs committee. More than 800 amendments to her report have been tabled.
Berès had harsh words for the analytical note on the EMU presented to the member states by the European Commission at the February European summit (see EUROPE 11252). She feels that all this note talks about is strengthening budgetary and macro-economic surveillance, neglecting the social dimension of the EMU, even though the Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, had pledged to make this one of his priorities.
The 'Berès' report, which was presented in early February, comments on the Commission's communication on the flexibility laid down in the Stability and Growth Pact (see EUROPE 11229). Welcoming this approach, the rapporteur is nonetheless of the opinion that the neutrality under the Pact of various types of public expenditure to co-fund investments supported by Community programmes and initiatives (trans-European networks, youth employment initiative) should apply to all of the countries of the EU, not just those which are not under excessive deficit proceedings (deficit below 3% of GDP).
Additionally, the Commission's new 'matrix' - which allows the structural budgetary effort to be modulated more, on the basis of economic circumstances - “fails to factor in the next crisis”, which is “the level of public debt”, Berès explained.
On the question of what can be done to strengthen the EMU in the short term without changing the European Treaty, the French Socialist hopes to make use of the current assessment of the 'two-pack' and 'six-pack' packages which revised the Pact to put forward several ideas. Firstly, “there has to be a political discussion on the budgetary situation of the eurozone as a whole” and as far upstream as possible. France and Italy are calling for this discussion to take place at the eurozone summits to be held on the sidelines of the spring summits (see EUROPE 11262). The governance of the European Semester budgetary process should also be revised to make it more transparent and to allow greater ownership, at national level, of the reforms recommended.
In her draft report, Berès makes longer-term proposals to strengthen the democratic legitimacy of economic governance at European level, a process which should be based on the “Community method”. The European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the permanent bailout fund of the eurozone and an inter-governmental creation, should come under the regulatory framework of the EU. The same applies to the bailout programmes of countries in difficulties, in order to ensure that the decisions made fully involve the European Parliament. And as for the Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, he should take on the role of President of the Eurogroup. This idea is not to the liking of the current head of the Eurozone finance ministers, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, whose mandate expires in the summer (see EUROPE 11262). (Mathieu Bion)