Fiscal union, State-saving Fund strengthened with 500 billion euros and managed directly by the European Central Bank, the European Commission's role of control over the budgets of the member states, an end to private participation in debt restructuring. It had to be an overhaul, and an overhaul it was. At the end of long and exhausting negotiations – marked by tears within the 27 countries – the European Council approves the euro-saving measures. 'Semi-automatic' sanctions are foreseen for those who violate the agreements (any punishment will be inflicted unless three quarters of the countries vote against) and for those who exceed the deficit/GDP ratio by 3% (in fact sanctions are foreseen unless a majority votes against qualified), budgetary rules in the Constitution with the European Commission called upon to supervise their observance.
Again, the Stability Fund (EFSF) will continue to finance the programs launched until mid-2013, when the EFSF will be replaced by the ESM (European Stability Mechanism), which will come to have an effective lending capacity of 500 billion euros. Speaking of economic resources, there is the willingness to evaluate the possibility of guaranteeing loans to the International Monetary Fund for 150 billion euros, possibly extendable up to 200. Furthermore, the era of the so-called PSI, the involvement of private individuals in the restructuring of sovereign debts.
In the final document, there is no trace of stability bonds, an option on which, however, discussions will continue. They are therefore not definitively gone at the moment, and remain as a possibly future tool to be developed and discussed. Fiscal union, the most difficult knot to untie and eliminated after long negotiations and a thousand difficulties, will eventually be adopted in March through an intergovernmental agreement. The appointment is in fact for "the beginning of March", when the treaty "will be signed" in order to ensure that "it will be ratified by mid-2012", explained the president of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, at a press conference.
"The new fiscal union treaty will be like the Schengen agreement," he said. The agreement which sanctioned the free movement of goods and people, he recalled, "was first adopted at an intergovernmental level and then integrated into the EU treaty". It remains to be seen how it will be adopted, because if the meeting of the European Council has redesigned the mechanisms of the EU, it has above all rewritten 'the formula'. In the end, in fact, a 27+17 EU does not come out with three other countries in doubt.
In fact, all the countries of the Eurogroup plus Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Denmark say 'yes' to the measures, with the unknowns for the Czech Republic, Sweden and Hungary which have entrusted their respective parliaments with the last word. Out only Great Britain, which - in the words of Prime Minister David Cameron - "does not intend to give up sovereignty as these countries are doing". London wants to maintain its own interest rates and monetary policy, and for this reason it effectively 'leaves' the Union. “We have lost an opportunity to take a decision at 27”, acknowledged Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, at the end of the meeting.
"We would have liked an agreement with 27, but in the absence of unanimity we had to make other decisions," he added. "we must not forget what the objective was", remarked the president of the EU Commission, Josè Manuel Barroso. “It was necessary to strengthen the discipline and control of governance,” he recalled. Not only that: "If the message we wanted to send was that we wanted a common governance of the Eurozone, I believe that the agreement reached goes in the right direction". Victory, therefore, but halfway, because the fact remains that Europe has lost some pieces.
"It is difficult to say how Great Britain's role in the European decision-making process will evolve, but I believe there will be a certain isolation", did not hide the Prime Minister, Mario Monti, at the end of the summit, announcing a summit in mid-January three with France and Germany in Rome. At the end of the meeting, it was no coincidence that Monti spoke of an "almost community, almost 27" Europe, to underline the British drift from the common project.
A two-speed Europe, therefore, which finds an agreement but loses a strategic partner. But the crisis situation suddenly seems to be better managed: there will be – barring surprises – no extraordinary European Council before Christmas, as some had feared. The appointment is for March 2012, when there will be an update on the situation and what to do in more detail.
