The treaty on the stability, coordination and governance of the economic and monetary union arrives in the Senate: the so-called “Fiscal compact”. In the Foreign Affairs Committee at Palazzo Madama the discussion of the bill to ratify the treaty signed by 25 European Union states begins.
The treaty will enter into force on 2013 January XNUMX, provided that at least twelve contracting parties have deposited their instrument of ratification. Let's review the contents briefly.
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1. Commitment to balanced public budgets. The structural deficit must not exceed 0,5% of GDP and, for countries whose debt is less than 60% of GDP, 1%.
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2. Each state guarantees automatic corrections when it fails to meet agreed budgetary targets and is obliged to act within specified deadlines.
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3. The new rules must be incorporated into national legislation.
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4. The public deficit must be kept below 3% of GDP, as envisaged by the Stability and Growth Pact, otherwise semi-automatic sanctions will be triggered.
- 5. There will be at least two summits a year of the 17 leaders of the countries adopting the euro, with the other countries invited to at least one of the two summits.
The constitutional reform underway in the Senate, which introduces a balanced budget in the Charter and which should have the definitive yes today, already transposes this general principle into the new article 81, while it will be necessary to define the operating methods of the correction mechanisms in a specific law automatic which would be triggered in the event of deviations from the maximum credit limit allowed.
