The European Commission presented yesterday in Brussels the blueprint for deepening the economic and monetary union. In the short term the goal is to study the way to promote certain public investments, responding to specific conditions, granting them special treatment that would be applied in the Stability Pact. In practice it is the "golden rule" of which Mario Monti is one of the greatest supporters, having solicited it both at the time when he was European commissioner and today when he is head of the Italian government.
Under certain conditions, therefore, and especially in the case of projects co-financed by the EU, "non-recurring public investment programs that have a verified positive impact on the sustainability of public finances could benefit from a temporary slippage from the medium-term budgetary objective or to the trajectory of correction that must allow it to be achieved".
Even if, warns the Commission, "it is not a question of a golden rule that authorizes a permanent exception for all public investments", but there will be assessments and choices, in order not to "jeopardize the primary objective of the Stability Pact" .
The Commission's prospectus also includes the project of a specific budgetary capacity for the Eurozone, and the preparation, within 5 years, of the system of partial mutualisation of the public debt of the member states, despite Germany's opposition, with the creation of a “Redemption Fund”.
