Cosa deciderà l'Europa

Redazione - Il Financial Times anticipa i contenuti delle conclusioni del prossimo Consiglio Europeo del 18-19 ottobre dedicato al futuro dell'eurozona, rendendo pubblico il documento con cui Van Rompuy "fa la sintesi" delle discussioni a livello di capitali europee.

Peter Spiegel - In today’s dead-tree version of the FT, we have a front-page story on an eight-page “draft guidelines for the conclusions” for this month’s EU summit, a document that includes some bold new ideas, like requiring eurozone countries to sign “individual contractual arrangements” with Brussels on their economic reform plans. The parts we found most interesting begin on page 7. Senior officials caution the draft is being used to stimulate debate so that Herman Van Rompuy, the European Council president, can come up with a more concrete consensus heading into the summit about what can be achieved.

SCARICA IL DOCUMENTO

Indeed, the cover sheet of the draft calls it a “state of progress regarding the various topics on the agenda”; still, since it was cobbled together after Van Rompuy’s series of meetings with eurozone leaders over the past month, it reflects the thinking of a lot of national leaders, particularly in the bloc’s largest countries. Here are some annotated thoughts on the sections worth focusing on: [F]or the Euro area, beyond the current steps to reinforce economic governance, evolving towards an integrated budgetary framework is necessary to ensure sound budgetary policies at the national and European levels that contribute to sustainable growth and ensure macroeconomic stability. In that context, mechanisms to prevent unsustainable budgetary developments as well as mechanisms for fiscal solidarity e.g. via an appropriate fiscal capacity should be explored; These are code words for a common eurozone budget, something both Germany and France have indicated support for. As we noted in today’s story, Pierre Moscovici raised the issue during a speech last month at the annual dinner of the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank, and German officials have proffered it as a way to pool resources without resorting to mutualising debt – the so-called “eurobonds” that have become anathema for many in Berlin. [T]he smooth functioning of EMU requires stronger coordination, convergence and enforcement in the areas of economic policy. In this context, 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; This is the section on requiring all eurozone countries to enter into binding agreements with the EU on economic reform plans, something only required currently of bailout countries. This would essentially give more backbone to the current “European Semester”, where national governments agree to reform plans proffered by the European Commission after a bit of negotiation. But enforcement is spotty and many countries don’t take the recommendations in their “country-specific reports” too seriously in the current process. [I]n the context of a renewed EMU with a more binding economic policy framework, one should explore the possibility of supporting Member States’ reform efforts with limited, temporary, flexible and targeted financial incentives; This proposal is basically an extension of the eurozone budget measure, and something that has also been raised occasionally by Berlin. The German government has repeatedly said it was willing to fund things like job training schemes or other labour reform programmes that would help ease the transition in countries going through the wrenching reform process. This could be the place where such schemes are fleshed out. For those closely following the debate on banking union, it’s also worth taking a look at pages 5 and 6, where Van Rompuy clearly calls on a new single bank supervisor, to be run by the European Central Bank, to be legislated by the end of the year – backing the quick timetable set by the European Commission but questioned by Berlin. Interestingly, the banking section also calls for current proposals working their way through the EU’s legislative machinery on rules for deposit guarantee schemes and bank resolutions to strip out language on lending between national funds: [C]all for the rapid adoption of the existing legislative proposals on bank recovery and resolution, national deposit guarantee schemes, which are crucial elements of the single rule book; also call for the rapid conclusion of work on the Capital Requirements Regulation and Directive 4. The provisions related to the harmonisation of national resolution and deposit guarantee frameworks, are particularly important. The provisions related to mandatory lending between national funds in the existing proposals should be considered separately; This appears to be a way to reset those proposals, since many EU leaders think they need to be more ambitious, shying away from a model where bailout funds and deposit guarantee schemes lend to each other and more towards one where eurozone countries pool them in one common fund.