Brussels, 02/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - On 22 December, France and Germany unveiled their new joint contribution to the European Convention on the subject of economic governance (following joint contributions on defence and justice and home affairs, with another on the institutions expected in the next few weeks). Dominique de Villepin and Joschka Fischer stress the decision-making capacity of the Eurozone, noting that the coordination of economic policy is of vital importance for countries sharing a common policy in terms of interest rates. They suggest recognising the existence of the Eurogroup in a protocol annexed to the Treaty; electing the Eurogroup President for a two year term; creating a "Euro-Ecofin Council" as suggested by the European Commission since states in the Eurozone should be able to decide themselves "in the framework of the Council, on any issue connected with the existence of their common currency" (especially since in the enlarged Europe, more EU Member States will not be members of the Eurozone "for several years"). France and Germanys say there should also be:
Improved coordination of economic policies without upsetting the balance of the existing institutional triangle which has proved its efficiency. Hence greater involvement of national parliaments should be encouraged in the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines and, in terms of budget monitoring procedures, there should be a clear distinction between procedures connected with objective monitoring powers (early warning system for the risk of exceeding the 3% budget deficit threshold), which should be the Commission's responsibility; and the role of recommendations for economic policy, which should be kept by the Council. The Commission should have the right to assess the situation independently of the Council when there is a danger of the 3% threshold being exceeded and this assessment should be carried out long with the Member States in the framework of a "contradictory procedure". The Commission must improve the quality and effectiveness of its surveillance.
Finetune the internal market by achieving genuine tax convergence. France and Germany stress that keeping unanimous voting would be a serious obstacle to any progress in this area and therefore restate their joint proposal (presented to the Nice Summit in December 2000) to make greater use of qualified majority voting for all tax issues directly linked to the internal market. Moreover, the most efficient and pragmatic medium-term approach, in their view, would be to set a convergence target to concentrate effort on a few key tax issues.
Make progress towards setting up a single post for foreign representation. Paris and Berlin note that a necessary first step toward this would be to strengthen and extend the work of preparing common positions international financial institutions.