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EU budget plan to be outlined
10.01.2012 16:34 "Agro Perspectiva" (Kyiv) —
The agreement setting up the European fiscal union could be signed by the end of January. While negotiators from all the EU countries have gathered in Brussels to discuss the agreement enforcing tighter budgets across Europe, analysts say that talks are doomed to be very tense.
The idea of the fiscal union was approved by the December summit of the European Union.
Analysts of the German web site Dradio.de, which are closely monitoring the talks, believe that the so-called sherpas will play the most important part during the coming days and weeks. A sherpa is the personal representative of a head of the 17 Euro zone countries and 9 states of the European Union that are not part of the euro zone (except for Britain which refused to join the euro zone).
The current session will be the second one, with the first one taking place on Christmas Eve. That meeting issued an 8-page treaty draft that now should be worked out in detail. The key issue of a treaty is to set limits of a state debt that should be fixed in the national constitutional acts. These limits should also be confirmed by the European Court. Any violations imply immediate sanctions.
Analysts believe that negotiators will manage to bridge the gap if only they have full support of their countries’ leaders. Here is an opinion from Elmar Brok, a member of the European People’s Party at the European Parliament and the Christian Democratic Union of Germany.
«We should do everything we can so that all the countries of the European Union are able to see eye to eye on a wider base of the fiscal union. To do this it is important to know these limits. The debt limits are fixed in all the national constitutions right now. And debtors have to make the first step because they depend on their neighbors’ solidarity. It is hard to seek solidarity without making any steps.»
Analysts of investment companies skeptically regard all these moves. It is not clear yet how the new budget pact is correlated with the European Stability Mechanism rescue funding program.
It is also unclear whether the document will be ratified or not, as many in Europe do not support the idea of granting more powers to the European commission. So some analysts doubt that a fiscal union could be founded within the European Union. For instance, the head of the German Social Democrats Frank Valter Steinmeier describes the project as a «phantom giant».
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