Wolfgang Schauble, Finance Minister of Germany, on the formalising of European institutions for the emergence of the European Monetary Fund.
The article by the German Finance Minister in this morning's Financial Times sets out just how well-developed and advanced are the means, both institutional and formally embodied in policy, for European-wide monetary and fiscal policies. It is not Greece that is 'at a crossroads'; Greece has bowed the knee. It is the United Kingdom: excluded for long, Brown years from the Eurozone's inner consultations and decisions, exposed by the foolish Brown economic order to the ills that have engulfed Greece, once again we come too late to the negotiating table to make any effective contribution or achieve any advantage.
All three political parties have promised, once again, that in future European treaties will be put to the popular vote. The Conservatives have specified that such a vote will take the form of a referendum. Labour and the Liberal Democrats? There the weasel words will be that this treaty setting up the European Monetary Fund and giving a legal basis to policies already being enacted, is separate from change to Lisbon and should be dealt with by the Executive.
There is no really serious way in which the United Kingdom can continue for much longer in this half in half out European Union membership. All member-states are required to bring their economies into line with qualifying for and then joining the Eurozone; the fact that the UK has an opt out to not actually use the Euro and has kept sterling does not release us from conforming to the Stability and Growth Pact (although current circumstances have suspended its provisions and its sanctions are currently weak). With the formalisation of the European Monetary Fund this situation will not continue and sanctions will become very real.
At the general election any vote for Labour or for the Liberal Democrats is a vote for the end of sterling and for 'ever-closer union', including crucially the loss of monetary and fiscal policy control - the outsourcing of politically unpopular debt repayment measures and the avoidance of responsibility by Labour. The Conservatives have policies to repatriate powers, keep sterling, and consult the people by referendum on any change that alters the UK's levels of integration into Europe. Frankly, that is the best that we can hope for until they are in power.
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3 comments:
I am not convinced that the various promises are worth a row of beans.
The Tories have pledged a referendum on "any future European treaties". Sounds good. But the whole point about Lisbon is that no more treaties will ever be needed; Lisbon includes the powers needed for the EU to extend its own powers whenever it feels the need (which is all the time). The treaty is self-amending.
No more treaties will be required, so Dave will never need to hold his referendum.
Further encroachments will then be met with the weasel words: "Ah, that's not a treaty, you see, so no referendum needed.
My informant's view is that another treaty is required and that the Rome Maastricht Lisbon treaty is not being touched. That implies, though was not at all stated, that the self-amending aspects of Lisbon are not being called into use, for whatever reason - too much trouble, not sufficient for the case (which I think is Cranmer's view), or not needed.
For the UK (other member-states have other constitutions and other attitudes to ever-closer union) this is certainly not about Lisbon: it is about another treaty, and who is consulted on accession or rejection. (I might add, I am not familiar with the precise wording of the Conservative commitment to a referendum. Constitutionally I do not think it could be binding, merely advisory, because treaty-making is a power of the Executive in the UK.)
It follows that the Conservatives will have a referendum on the new treaty - though the referendum will (in the nature of referendums) respond to another question: in this case 'in or out?'
"for whatever reason": for the very simple reason that even after Lisbon not all decisions can be taken on a qualified majority vote. New members' accession, for instance, still requires unanimity, and something like an EMF moreover unanimity - presumably among EMU members at least, depending on the EMF brief - enshrined in a little treaty without which the new institution would have no legal foundation.
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