Brussels, 25/11/2003 (Agence Europe) - As predicted, the indulgence shown towards Germany by most of the Eurogroup on Monday evening (see above) raised the hackles of CDU/CSU MEPs. Hans-Gert Pöttering, Chairman of the EPP-ED group, said: how do we "explain to people that, for example, a bank's customers are penalised by higher interest rates if they go over their line of credit, but the governments of larger Member States of the EU are indulged?". "Constructive proposals are now needed", he said. Hartmut Nassauer was less conciliating, and called upon Commissioner Solbes to look into a grievance to the Court of Justice against the "illegal practices of the German and French Finance Ministers". He feels that the current situation shows that, in discussions at the IGC, the Stability Pact should be given "a constitutional rank", and provide that in the future, "only the European Commission can decide the procedures on deficit".
Also highly critical was Chairman of the Liberal group, Graham Watson, said he found the agreement on Germany between the Eurogroup members "shabby": he feels that "it will compromise the ratification of the new European Constitution", because the citizens may wonder what is the point of agreeing on rules to govern the Union when the larger countries ride roughshod over them when the going gets tough. The European Parliament should "hold a thorough post-mortem on this sorry affair", he said.
French Green Alain Lipietz completely disagreed, "doubly" welcoming the Eurogroup verdict, as "the application of the Pact would have been absurd for Europe today, and it is clear that in the future it cannot be included in the Constitution". Stating that the Pact "is to be found, as it is, in the 3rd part of the draft Constitution (but without clear figures, which are the subject of a protocol and a regulation)", Mr Lipietz said: "this is a first example of the need to treat this third part separately". "The 'intelligent' interpretation is to forget this stupid Pact". He added: "this time, it is the Maastricht clauses which establish the irresponsibility of the Central Bank, which were also put in the 3rd part, which seem 'stupid' and should be removed from the Constitution and revised". Mr Lipietz noted that his colleague, Robert Goebbels, Luxembourg Socialist, "ironically pointed out that the Pact's sole objective is to defend the Euro; but the Euro has never been stronger than since the Pact was overridden".