The "Fiscal Compact", or "fiscal compact", which will unite 26 out of 27 countries of the European Union - excluding Great Britain - will be called the "Treaty on coordination and governance in the economic and monetary union" and will enter into force on the first January 2013. But there is one condition: at least 12 countries of the Eurozone must have ratified it (no longer 15, as in the previous version). This is what is foreseen in the new draft of the agreement circulated in the capitals by the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, in view of the new meeting of the negotiators of the member states in the Working Group, which will be held tomorrow in Brussels.
Although it did not integrate the amendments requested by Italy, which aimed to explicitly include in the text of the agreement various references to the so-called 'Six Pack' (the new rules on the strengthening of the economic governance of the Eurozone, in force since 13 December last), the new draft introduced an equivalent, though not as explicit, change. On the other hand, Germany's ultra-strict amendments were not accepted, which tended to add a further tightening of the public debt compared to the 'Six Pack' itself.
