Nous vous présentons la traduction anglaise de notre dernier ouvrage:
“A useless treaty”: this is how, in a statement approved by an overwhelming majority on 18th January 2012, the European Parliament described the new “Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG), also known as the “Budgetary Pact”[1], which was ratified on 9th December 2011 and signed on 2nd March 2012 by the euro zone’s Heads of State and Government. For members of the European Parliament, “this Treaty is totally unnecessary. Everything is already featured in the European laws that we adopted last year, primarily via the reform of the Stability Pact and the boosting of economic and budgetary policy coordination included under the “Six-Pack”[2].
Technically, this is not wrong. From a democratic standpoint, however, it is an altogether different story. Paradoxically, European citizens ought to thank Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, for having imposed on her European partners a Treaty that at least has the merit of prompting a real political debate in Europe, even if it does not add much to the jumbled heap of laws and directives that were discreetly adopted by the European Authorities in 2011. Should we ratify this “Budgetary Pact” as it stands? Amend it? Renegotiate it, or throw it out completely? The issue is being hotly debated in many European countries, starting with Germany. In France, the 2012 presidential elections saw a good deal of skirmishing over the Treaty. In contrast to Nicolas Sarkozy, who had signed it and sung its praises, François Hollande made a solemn commitment to “renegotiate the Budgetary Pact” by “supplementing” it with a “pro-growth element”, which he did not succeed in doing, as we will show.
Obviously, Mrs Merkel did not suggest this Treaty, with the complicity of Nicolas Sarkozy, with the intention of encouraging public debate. On the contrary, she used all her country’s economic and political firepower to ensure that the so-called balanced budget “Golden Rule” was irreversibly enshrined in Member States’ National Constitutions or in “binding and permanent provisions”. In so doing, however, she opened the Pandora’s Box of a democratic debate that could thwart her intentions.
The so-called “Golden Rule”, which is also known as the “balanced-budget” rule consists of an irrevocable commitment by signatory States “whose currency is the euro” (according to the Treaty), to balance their budgets in perpetuity, i.e. with a structural deficit that never exceeds 0.5% of GDP. The entire process is in the name of the categorical imperative of “financial stability”, i.e. reassuring the financial markets at any cost.
Unlike the late 2005 European Constitutional Treaty and its successor, the 2009 Treaty of Lisbon, the Budgetary Pact is short, and almost comprehensible, even if some provisions are hidden behind cross-references to other European legislation
[1] This description is a misnomer, as the “Budgetary Pact” is merely one section of the Treaty, although undoubtedly the most important one (Title III). For the sake of convenience, we use “Budgetary Pact” in this publication when referring to the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (TSCG).
[2] We will return to this legislation later in this publication.
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