The Don Quixotes of Brussels

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http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/1464941-don-quixotes-brussels

“The leaders are spending a great deal of their time at their summits discussing how to get out of the mess they got into at the previous summit,” whispers one player high in the political echelons of the EU.

The inanity of the repetitive and circular conversations about Greece, Portugal or on the size of the bailout fund confirmed yesterday just how difficult it is to extract oneself from the mess. The politicians have been stuck in it at least since Merkel and Sarkozy released from its bottle the goblin of state bankruptcy (Deauville, October 19, 2010), lurking in the write-off for private creditors (i.e., the decline in the value of their bonds). The meeting did make two great contributions to the saga of recurring stubbornness: giving the green light to a sham “Fiscal Treaty” and endorsing a plan for economic growth that is not a plan. It’s a joke.

Or does it just look like one?

Let's suppose the new fiscal treaty is necessary to ensure the discipline of eurozone members and to design, or open the door to, the resulting “compensations” in favour of growth. Which is a lot to assume: the European Parliament has expressed “its doubts about the necessity” for the agreement (Resolution of January 18), and Wolfgang Munchau (in Monday’s Financial Times) endorses and amplifies those doubts: “The Treaty is unnecessary,” because its provisions are “either in existing treaties or in legislation” and because the excessive restrictions of those provisions “will encourage” recessionary policies.

Byzantine tweaks

Let's suppose the doubters are wrong and that the Treaty, with its pompous title “for Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union”, is worth something. Well, the text develops only the idea of “stability”, of budgetary discipline. The rest of the title is not mentioned in the actual text.