The Fiscal Compact and the European Stability Treaty may
still have obstacles to overcome before they fully enter into force across the
signatory Member States, but the Fiscal Compact has its origins in the six-packof legislation adopted last year by the European Parliament and Council. That
the Parliament had a full and equal say over the substance of the Fiscal
Compact as EU legislation shows that it’s come a long way from the stereotype
of the cross-border talking shop and it now decides on big ticket European
issues.
The six-pack hasn’t marked the end of Eurozone legislation
however, with a two-pack being introduced at the end of 2011. The two-pack
consists of a proposed regulation for the Eurozone on the monitoring and
assessing of draft budgetary plans under the excessive deficit procedure (PDF),
and a proposed regulation on the strengthening of economic and budgetary
surveillance of Member States experiencing serious difficulties in financial
stability (PDF). I’ll just call these the “Excessive Deficit Regulation” and “Financial
Stability Regulation” respectively for short. Both proposals would increase the
Commission’s role in Member States’ fiscal affairs.
The European Parliament has voted on reports on these
proposals in Committee stage, but the Socialists and Democrats Group abstained
from the report votes after they failed to delay the vote (they wanted to
revisit the provisions after the French elections). The votes were close enough
that the Committee referred the reports to plenary to gauge political support
in the EP as a whole.
In the following blog posts I’ll look at each proposal in
turn and the Parliamentary reports:
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