The previous Grahnlaw post mentioned three of the Danish EU opt-outs. Let us take a brief look at all of them.
Danish opt-outs
At least on paper, Denmark looks like Britain, having four opt-outs from European co-operation. These opt-outs concern defence policy, justice and home affairs, the euro and union citizenship, the Folketinget (parliament) mentions in its presentation.
Earlier governments as well as the current one, led by Helle Thorning-Schmidt, have toyed with the idea to scrap one or more of the opt-outs. It would be in the national interest according to the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), but the politicians have not yet braved the uncertain outcome of a national referendum.
The atmosphere in Denmark is much more cooperative, constructive and positive than in the United Kingdom, where obstructionism, vetoes, repatriation of powers and calls for secession compete for the top spot, interspersed by occasional reminders about the importance of the internal market for British jobs and businesses.
Fiscal pacts and Schengen
Denmark participates in the Euro Plus Pact and in the negotiations aiming at a new, intergovernmental fiscal compact. The UK remains outside the first and has forced the intergovernmental route for the second.
Denmark is also a part of the Schengen Area with common external borders and free travel inside.
***
The NYT IHT offers a description of Denmark's position at the beginning of the Council presidency.
Ralf Grahn
Showing posts with label Euro Plus Pact. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Euro Plus Pact. Show all posts
Thursday, 12 January 2012
Saturday, 10 December 2011
European Council: centrifugal Cameron
Hopefully the political leaders, their teams, the EU officials and the journalists on duty during the European Council 8 and 9 December 2011 get some well deserved rest.
Soon enough they are going to be confronted with an astonishing number of political and legal questions needing to be sorted out.
First we have to look at what the summit(s) produced.
European Council conclusions
The traditonal conclusions are available in all the 23 official EU languages; the English version:
European Council 9 December 2011 conclusions (EUCO 139/11; 7 pages)
If you take a closer look, you notice that just over two text pages are dedicated to general economic policy issues, with many references to the Euro Plus Pact. The rest of the conclusions deal with energy, enlargement and some other topics.
For the second time in a short while, the meeting in the EU27 framework reminds us of the plain sliced bread roll of a hamburger, but without the beef or garnish.
This is not that far from the hastily called meeting where the EU heads of state or government were informed about the preparations for the Euro Summit later the same day, 26 (to 27) October 2011.
Now the ”bouches inutiles” of those unproductive in the defence during ancient sieges left the formal European Council conclusions gutted: the sliced roll.
To the extent that there is beef and garnish, they belong to the defenders of the euro, in the euro area statement in the official languages; in English (revised version):
Statement by the euro area heads of state or government; 9 December 2011
Centripetal forces
By Friday morning the 17 eurozone were joined by the same six non-euro countries which had earlier adopted the Euro Plus Pact in order to stay as close to the core as possible.
When prime minister David Cameron rejected regular treaty reform (without permanent powers for the United Kingdom to block financial regulation), the Czech Republic, Hungary and Sweden realised that they were on course towards marginalisation.
Despite their governments, parliaments and public opinions being cool towards deeper integration, deliberate loss of influence is not an attractive option. Difficult domestic discussion await, but they wanted to secure the option to join the new fiscal compact and to participate in fleshing out the details.
The euro area statement was revised accordingly, and the last sentence now reads like this:
Potentially there could be 26 participants in the new fiscal compact, leaving Britain alone. It is more probable that the six non-euro members of the Euro Plus Pact are willing to take the next step together with the eurozone 17: Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.
For the Czech Republic, Hungary and Sweden the fiscal compact (and, I imagine, belatedly joining the Euro Plus Pact) would mean reorientation, against the grain of their previous policies. However, few national leaders embrace loss of influence, if they can avoid it.
The eurozone chaos has done little to sweeten the deal. Less than 10 per cent of the Swedes support euro adoption, down by around 40 percentage points in two years.
United Kingdom
Let us still call a 27-1 European Union a theoretical outcome, but prime minister David Cameron's centrifugal strategy has brought something close to it into the realm of reality.
By falling on his sword to please his backbenchers, he did not become more fit to defend the one square mile of Britain he ostentatiously cares about. On the contrary, the UK's goodwill deficit grew considerably, so the government is less useful for the City in the future.
I wonder why deputy prime minister Nick Clegg signed up to the strategic disaster.
Cameron's reaction leaves the door open for reprisals to prevent the rest of the EU member states from using the institutions and facilities of the European Union:
As I said, there is an astonishing number of political and legal questions to sort out after the European summit(s), without Cameron including active sabotage in his well wishes to the countries joining the fiscal compact.
Soon enough the participants will find the difficulties all by themselves.
Ralf Grahn
Soon enough they are going to be confronted with an astonishing number of political and legal questions needing to be sorted out.
First we have to look at what the summit(s) produced.
European Council conclusions
The traditonal conclusions are available in all the 23 official EU languages; the English version:
European Council 9 December 2011 conclusions (EUCO 139/11; 7 pages)
If you take a closer look, you notice that just over two text pages are dedicated to general economic policy issues, with many references to the Euro Plus Pact. The rest of the conclusions deal with energy, enlargement and some other topics.
For the second time in a short while, the meeting in the EU27 framework reminds us of the plain sliced bread roll of a hamburger, but without the beef or garnish.
This is not that far from the hastily called meeting where the EU heads of state or government were informed about the preparations for the Euro Summit later the same day, 26 (to 27) October 2011.
Now the ”bouches inutiles” of those unproductive in the defence during ancient sieges left the formal European Council conclusions gutted: the sliced roll.
To the extent that there is beef and garnish, they belong to the defenders of the euro, in the euro area statement in the official languages; in English (revised version):
Statement by the euro area heads of state or government; 9 December 2011
Centripetal forces
By Friday morning the 17 eurozone were joined by the same six non-euro countries which had earlier adopted the Euro Plus Pact in order to stay as close to the core as possible.
When prime minister David Cameron rejected regular treaty reform (without permanent powers for the United Kingdom to block financial regulation), the Czech Republic, Hungary and Sweden realised that they were on course towards marginalisation.
Despite their governments, parliaments and public opinions being cool towards deeper integration, deliberate loss of influence is not an attractive option. Difficult domestic discussion await, but they wanted to secure the option to join the new fiscal compact and to participate in fleshing out the details.
The euro area statement was revised accordingly, and the last sentence now reads like this:
The Heads of State or Government of Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Sweden indicated the possibility to take part in this process after consulting their Parliaments where appropriate.
Potentially there could be 26 participants in the new fiscal compact, leaving Britain alone. It is more probable that the six non-euro members of the Euro Plus Pact are willing to take the next step together with the eurozone 17: Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.
For the Czech Republic, Hungary and Sweden the fiscal compact (and, I imagine, belatedly joining the Euro Plus Pact) would mean reorientation, against the grain of their previous policies. However, few national leaders embrace loss of influence, if they can avoid it.
The eurozone chaos has done little to sweeten the deal. Less than 10 per cent of the Swedes support euro adoption, down by around 40 percentage points in two years.
United Kingdom
Let us still call a 27-1 European Union a theoretical outcome, but prime minister David Cameron's centrifugal strategy has brought something close to it into the realm of reality.
By falling on his sword to please his backbenchers, he did not become more fit to defend the one square mile of Britain he ostentatiously cares about. On the contrary, the UK's goodwill deficit grew considerably, so the government is less useful for the City in the future.
I wonder why deputy prime minister Nick Clegg signed up to the strategic disaster.
Cameron's reaction leaves the door open for reprisals to prevent the rest of the EU member states from using the institutions and facilities of the European Union:
When we can’t be given those safeguards in the treaty, it is better this is done by intergovernmental arrangements, outside the treaty and outside the institutions of the European Union. That is what will happen, and that is what is in Britain’s national interests.
As I said, there is an astonishing number of political and legal questions to sort out after the European summit(s), without Cameron including active sabotage in his well wishes to the countries joining the fiscal compact.
Soon enough the participants will find the difficulties all by themselves.
Ralf Grahn
Tuesday, 12 April 2011
European Council: More ambitious reforms from EU member states?
In a series of blog posts I corralled the latest entries published on my four blogs and in three languages: Grahnlaw (EN), Grahnblawg (SV), Eurooppaoikeus (FI) and Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (EN, FI, SV).
The practices of the European Council and possible reform of this (now) official EU institution, as well as the conclusions of the spring summit regarding economic policy, sustainable public finances and growth-enhancing Europe 2020 reforms were discussed in the articles mentioned. This latest compilation, divided into five parts, covered blog posts published between 25 March and 9 April 2011: One, Two, Three, Four and Five.
Inspiration from spring European Council?
Guidance from the spring European Council was intended to inspire possible improvements in the final versions of the Stability Programme or Convergence Programme and in the National Reform Programme (NPR) of each member state.
However, the economic policy paragraphs (2 to 5) we have looked at in the conclusions were sketchy enough to add no new substance to earlier Integrated Guidelines, EU2020 headline targets, the Annual Growth Survey (AGS) from the Commission, or conclusions from different Council configurations (summarised in the synthesis report by the Hungarian Council presidency):
European Council 24/25 March 2011; Brussels, 25 March 2011 (EUCO 10/11; 34 pages)
If the paragraphs concerning the implementation of the European Semester contained no added value, they did not visbly detract from the goals, proposals and conclusions mentioned.
The European Council conclusions clearly endorsed public deficit reduction (paragraph 3) and they backed structural reforms in a number of wide areas (paragraph 4), plus they reiterated the next steps in accordance with European Semester procedures (paragraph 5).
In this respect, the conclusions by the spring European Council could be described as neutral.
Beside the EU level EU2020 Flagship initiatives and Single Market reform, the concrete actions to reduce public deficits and debt levels to tolerable levels and to reform product and labour markets are in the hands of the EU member states, and the previously agreed targets are general enough to offer as much room as national governments need (and much more than most of them are willing or able to contemplate).
In addition, higher levels of ambition are expressed elsewhere in the European Council conclusions.
Euro Plus Pact
Single Market reform, free trade agreements, the proposed ”six-pack” legislation on economic governance and (more rigorous) new stress tests of banks received complementary backing from the European Council.
The European Council also took a step towards establishing the new and permanent European Stability Mechanism (ESM), intended to replace the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM) in providing external financial assistance to euro-area Member States after June 2013. (See EUCO 10/11 Annex II.)
However, the higher reform ambitions we spoke about were expressed in the Euro Plus Pact, with Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania joining the 17 euro area states in order to enhance competitiveness and convergence. An annual cabal of heads of state or government is supposed to bring additional national commitments to the table. (See EUCO 10/11 Annex I.)
The goals are wide enough to house almost any economic reform plans and pledges:
Concrete new reform commitments?
The first batch of more ambitious commitments is supposed to find its way into the national programmes due in April (EUCO 10/11 paragraph 12):
I have seen no EU level compilation of first commitments already announced. At least the National Reform Programmes (NRPs), if not the Stability and Convergence Programmes, should start appearing on the Commission's web pages for the Europe 2020 strategy, but this morning the search for member states' documents still returns zilch.
The DG Economic and Financial Affairs (Ecfin) pages with the Stability and convergence programmes concern the 2009-2010 round (last update 6 October 2010), so we remain in waiting mode at EU level with regard to final versions 2011.
Naturally, for more energetic souls there is the opportunity to scout for the programmes government by government (and a few updates have appeared during the last days), but I leave systematic search along this avenue to the more ardent researchers.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Eva en Europa, by Eva Peña (on Twitter @evaeuropa), is one of the top Euroblogs and a fine representative of the lively Spanish scene of citizen-bloggers dedicated to European affairs. She writes reasoned posts with a long shelf-life, mainly in Spanish, but has published occasionally in English and Catalan.
The practices of the European Council and possible reform of this (now) official EU institution, as well as the conclusions of the spring summit regarding economic policy, sustainable public finances and growth-enhancing Europe 2020 reforms were discussed in the articles mentioned. This latest compilation, divided into five parts, covered blog posts published between 25 March and 9 April 2011: One, Two, Three, Four and Five.
Inspiration from spring European Council?
Guidance from the spring European Council was intended to inspire possible improvements in the final versions of the Stability Programme or Convergence Programme and in the National Reform Programme (NPR) of each member state.
However, the economic policy paragraphs (2 to 5) we have looked at in the conclusions were sketchy enough to add no new substance to earlier Integrated Guidelines, EU2020 headline targets, the Annual Growth Survey (AGS) from the Commission, or conclusions from different Council configurations (summarised in the synthesis report by the Hungarian Council presidency):
European Council 24/25 March 2011; Brussels, 25 March 2011 (EUCO 10/11; 34 pages)
If the paragraphs concerning the implementation of the European Semester contained no added value, they did not visbly detract from the goals, proposals and conclusions mentioned.
The European Council conclusions clearly endorsed public deficit reduction (paragraph 3) and they backed structural reforms in a number of wide areas (paragraph 4), plus they reiterated the next steps in accordance with European Semester procedures (paragraph 5).
In this respect, the conclusions by the spring European Council could be described as neutral.
Beside the EU level EU2020 Flagship initiatives and Single Market reform, the concrete actions to reduce public deficits and debt levels to tolerable levels and to reform product and labour markets are in the hands of the EU member states, and the previously agreed targets are general enough to offer as much room as national governments need (and much more than most of them are willing or able to contemplate).
In addition, higher levels of ambition are expressed elsewhere in the European Council conclusions.
Euro Plus Pact
Single Market reform, free trade agreements, the proposed ”six-pack” legislation on economic governance and (more rigorous) new stress tests of banks received complementary backing from the European Council.
The European Council also took a step towards establishing the new and permanent European Stability Mechanism (ESM), intended to replace the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM) in providing external financial assistance to euro-area Member States after June 2013. (See EUCO 10/11 Annex II.)
However, the higher reform ambitions we spoke about were expressed in the Euro Plus Pact, with Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania joining the 17 euro area states in order to enhance competitiveness and convergence. An annual cabal of heads of state or government is supposed to bring additional national commitments to the table. (See EUCO 10/11 Annex I.)
The goals are wide enough to house almost any economic reform plans and pledges:
§ Foster competitiveness
§ Foster employment
§ Contribute further to the sustainability of public finances
§ Reinforce financial stability
Concrete new reform commitments?
The first batch of more ambitious commitments is supposed to find its way into the national programmes due in April (EUCO 10/11 paragraph 12):
12. The Member States that have signed up to the Pact are committed, on the basis of the indicators and principles it contains, to announce a set of concrete actions to be achieved within the next twelve months. A number of Member States have already announced first commitments. All participating Member States will present their commitments as soon as possible and in any event on time for their inclusion in their Stability or Convergence Programmes and National Reform Programmes to be submitted in April and for their assessment at the June European Council.
I have seen no EU level compilation of first commitments already announced. At least the National Reform Programmes (NRPs), if not the Stability and Convergence Programmes, should start appearing on the Commission's web pages for the Europe 2020 strategy, but this morning the search for member states' documents still returns zilch.
The DG Economic and Financial Affairs (Ecfin) pages with the Stability and convergence programmes concern the 2009-2010 round (last update 6 October 2010), so we remain in waiting mode at EU level with regard to final versions 2011.
Naturally, for more energetic souls there is the opportunity to scout for the programmes government by government (and a few updates have appeared during the last days), but I leave systematic search along this avenue to the more ardent researchers.
Ralf Grahn
P.S. Eva en Europa, by Eva Peña (on Twitter @evaeuropa), is one of the top Euroblogs and a fine representative of the lively Spanish scene of citizen-bloggers dedicated to European affairs. She writes reasoned posts with a long shelf-life, mainly in Spanish, but has published occasionally in English and Catalan.
Sunday, 10 April 2011
European Council blogging: Part Two (10042011)
Previous round-up of my blog entries was published in Part One, with articles posted 25 and 26 March 2011.
The blog posts appear on four blogs and in three languages: on Grahnlaw (EN), Grahnblawg (SV), Eurooppaoikeus (FI) and Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (EN, FI, SV).
Part Two takes us from 27 to 29 March 2011.
European Council practices and in Euroblogs
After the previous batch followed a Swedish rhapsody, although most documents referenced can be found in other languages, blog posts by others are in the original language and there is always the fall-back option to use Google translation.
Observations about the lack of transparency were followed by a peek at translation issues and the available materials, followed by three round-ups of Euroblog posts in different languages about the European Council issues with regard to economic policies.
Grahnblawg (in Swedish): Europeiska rådets slutsatser: Konsensus och ogenomskinlighet (27 March 2011)
Grahnblawg (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet: Status och slutsatser på 23 språk (27 March 2011)
Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet om ekonomin i Europabloggar I (28 March 2011)
Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet om ekonomin i Europabloggar II (28 March 2011)
Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet om ekonomin i Europabloggar III (28 March 2011)
Euro Plus Pact
We looked at media reports and reactions to the 24 and 25 March 2011 European Council adoption of the Euro Plus Pact, which joins the 17 eurozone countries with Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, leaving only the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden and the United Kingdom outside.
Grahnlaw: Euro Plus Pact in the media I (29 March 2011)
Grahnlaw: Euro Plus Pact in the media II (29 March 2011)
Ralf Grahn
P.S. The European Tribune offers both a daily review of international media and a community which discusses interesting topics concerning the EU, economics, finance etc. Lurk or join.
The blog posts appear on four blogs and in three languages: on Grahnlaw (EN), Grahnblawg (SV), Eurooppaoikeus (FI) and Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (EN, FI, SV).
Part Two takes us from 27 to 29 March 2011.
European Council practices and in Euroblogs
After the previous batch followed a Swedish rhapsody, although most documents referenced can be found in other languages, blog posts by others are in the original language and there is always the fall-back option to use Google translation.
Observations about the lack of transparency were followed by a peek at translation issues and the available materials, followed by three round-ups of Euroblog posts in different languages about the European Council issues with regard to economic policies.
Grahnblawg (in Swedish): Europeiska rådets slutsatser: Konsensus och ogenomskinlighet (27 March 2011)
Grahnblawg (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet: Status och slutsatser på 23 språk (27 March 2011)
Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet om ekonomin i Europabloggar I (28 March 2011)
Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet om ekonomin i Europabloggar II (28 March 2011)
Grahnlaw Suomi Finland (in Swedish): Europeiska rådet om ekonomin i Europabloggar III (28 March 2011)
Euro Plus Pact
We looked at media reports and reactions to the 24 and 25 March 2011 European Council adoption of the Euro Plus Pact, which joins the 17 eurozone countries with Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, leaving only the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden and the United Kingdom outside.
Grahnlaw: Euro Plus Pact in the media I (29 March 2011)
Grahnlaw: Euro Plus Pact in the media II (29 March 2011)
Ralf Grahn
P.S. The European Tribune offers both a daily review of international media and a community which discusses interesting topics concerning the EU, economics, finance etc. Lurk or join.
Tuesday, 29 March 2011
Euro Plus Pact in the media II
We continue our European media round-up with the second part concerning the Euro Plus Pact, confirmed by the spring European Council 24 to 25 March 2011.
The political Left is in opposition in much of Europe, and more apt to remember the stimulus part of Keynesian thinking, so we let the blog of Patrick Le Hyaric represent much Left and labour union rhetoric (in French): Pacte pour l'euro, un pacte diabolique (23 March 2011).
Tough language, but vague at the edges, was how RTBF.be described the Euro Plus Pact: Europe: le ”pacte pour l'euro plus”, nouvelle politique de compétitivité aux contours flous (25 March 2011)
Alberto Tuzi discusses the Euro Plus Pact and other economic policy decisions on the Tor Vergata blog (in Italian): Non solo politica al Consiglio europeo di primavera:nouve importanti decisioni sulla governance economica (28 March 2011).
Six non-eurozone countries, Poland, Bulgaria, Denmark, Romania, Lithuania and Latvia are joining the Europact, now called the Euro Plus Pact. This leaves just four EU member states outside: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The interesting EurActiv news report included reasons expressed by country leaders, but the article mistakenly said that Sweden is under no legal obligation to join the eurozone: 'Euro-plus pact' divides non-eurozone members (latest update 28 March 2011).
EUobserver tells us that the annual Euro Plus Pact summits will take place as the same time as the (economic) spring summits of the European Council. The eurozone summit will take place without the four outsiders (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden and the United Kingdom): Annual euro-pact summits will see refuseniks asked to leave the room (29 March 2011).
Sweden remains outside the Euro Plus Pact, but the defence of the nation state has not changed much between the Swedish political leaders Ingvar Carlsson and Fredirk Reinfeldt, twenty years apart. Ylva Nilsson writes on EU-merabloggen (in Swedish): Euro plus... minus Sverige (25 March 2011).
Ralf Grahn
The political Left is in opposition in much of Europe, and more apt to remember the stimulus part of Keynesian thinking, so we let the blog of Patrick Le Hyaric represent much Left and labour union rhetoric (in French): Pacte pour l'euro, un pacte diabolique (23 March 2011).
Tough language, but vague at the edges, was how RTBF.be described the Euro Plus Pact: Europe: le ”pacte pour l'euro plus”, nouvelle politique de compétitivité aux contours flous (25 March 2011)
Alberto Tuzi discusses the Euro Plus Pact and other economic policy decisions on the Tor Vergata blog (in Italian): Non solo politica al Consiglio europeo di primavera:nouve importanti decisioni sulla governance economica (28 March 2011).
Six non-eurozone countries, Poland, Bulgaria, Denmark, Romania, Lithuania and Latvia are joining the Europact, now called the Euro Plus Pact. This leaves just four EU member states outside: the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The interesting EurActiv news report included reasons expressed by country leaders, but the article mistakenly said that Sweden is under no legal obligation to join the eurozone: 'Euro-plus pact' divides non-eurozone members (latest update 28 March 2011).
EUobserver tells us that the annual Euro Plus Pact summits will take place as the same time as the (economic) spring summits of the European Council. The eurozone summit will take place without the four outsiders (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Sweden and the United Kingdom): Annual euro-pact summits will see refuseniks asked to leave the room (29 March 2011).
Sweden remains outside the Euro Plus Pact, but the defence of the nation state has not changed much between the Swedish political leaders Ingvar Carlsson and Fredirk Reinfeldt, twenty years apart. Ylva Nilsson writes on EU-merabloggen (in Swedish): Euro plus... minus Sverige (25 March 2011).
Ralf Grahn
Euro Plus Pact in the media I
How have blogs and other media received the economic policy guidelines and decisions adopted by the European Council spring meeting? Have they been as impressed as some political leaders by their own feats?
European Council recap
We started with the 'Spring European Council summary' on Grahnlaw, then continued with more general reflections in Swedish on Grahnblawg 'Europeiska rådets slutsatser: Konsensus och ogenomskinlighet' and 'Europeiska rådet: Status och slutsatser på 23 språk'.
Yesterday, on Grahnlaw Suomi Finland we looked at the spring meeting of the European Council through blog reactions. Although the entry is in Swedish, the links lead to the posts in the original languages: Europeiska rådet om ekonomin i Europabloggar one, two and three.
Primary source
The conclusions remain the primary source:
European Council 24/25 March 2011: Conclusions; Brussels, 25 March 2011 (EUCO 10/11; 34 pages)
No false modesty from the European Council when it started its conclusions about economic policy by proclaiming (paragraph 1, on page 2):
After the meeting, Commission president José Manuel Durão Barroso waxed lyrical about the 'historic' conclusions, but he also offered a brief overview of the decisions taken (SPEECH/11/216).
Euro Plus Pact
One of the novelties was the Euro Plus Pact, which joins 17 eurozone countries with six still outside the euro area. Let us continue by looking at interesting posts on Euroblogs, while including other media in the round-up.
If political leaders were awe-struck by their feats, were other commentators as impressed?
Eva en Europa reminds us of the various stages on the road towards the final adoption of the Euro Plus Pact. The Pact is based on enduring self-interest more than on European ideals (in Spanish): Je t'aime ...Moi non plus (25 March 2011).
The Blog de Luis Casas Luengos dissects the Europact critically, as a denial of the systemic nature of the euro crisis: Pacto del euro: felíz año 2006 (28 March 2011).
Andrew Watt on the Social Europe Journal blog notes that the Euro Plus Pact and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) provide more effective and timely financial support in exchange for greater European integration of economic policymaking. However, the Pact is not a path out of the crisis: The euro plus pact – a plus but not a solution (28 March 2011)
Ralf Grahn
European Council recap
We started with the 'Spring European Council summary' on Grahnlaw, then continued with more general reflections in Swedish on Grahnblawg 'Europeiska rådets slutsatser: Konsensus och ogenomskinlighet' and 'Europeiska rådet: Status och slutsatser på 23 språk'.
Yesterday, on Grahnlaw Suomi Finland we looked at the spring meeting of the European Council through blog reactions. Although the entry is in Swedish, the links lead to the posts in the original languages: Europeiska rådet om ekonomin i Europabloggar one, two and three.
Primary source
The conclusions remain the primary source:
European Council 24/25 March 2011: Conclusions; Brussels, 25 March 2011 (EUCO 10/11; 34 pages)
No false modesty from the European Council when it started its conclusions about economic policy by proclaiming (paragraph 1, on page 2):
The European Council today adopted a comprehensive package of measures to respond to the crisis, preserve financial stability and lay the ground for smart, sustainable, socially inclusive and job-creating growth. This will strengthen the economic governance and competitiveness of the euro area and of the European Union.
After the meeting, Commission president José Manuel Durão Barroso waxed lyrical about the 'historic' conclusions, but he also offered a brief overview of the decisions taken (SPEECH/11/216).
Euro Plus Pact
One of the novelties was the Euro Plus Pact, which joins 17 eurozone countries with six still outside the euro area. Let us continue by looking at interesting posts on Euroblogs, while including other media in the round-up.
If political leaders were awe-struck by their feats, were other commentators as impressed?
Eva en Europa reminds us of the various stages on the road towards the final adoption of the Euro Plus Pact. The Pact is based on enduring self-interest more than on European ideals (in Spanish): Je t'aime ...Moi non plus (25 March 2011).
The Blog de Luis Casas Luengos dissects the Europact critically, as a denial of the systemic nature of the euro crisis: Pacto del euro: felíz año 2006 (28 March 2011).
Andrew Watt on the Social Europe Journal blog notes that the Euro Plus Pact and the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) provide more effective and timely financial support in exchange for greater European integration of economic policymaking. However, the Pact is not a path out of the crisis: The euro plus pact – a plus but not a solution (28 March 2011)
Ralf Grahn
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