EU overweegt verandering spelregels euro (en)

The death knell may finally be sounding for the beleaguered Stability and Growth Pact.

The pact - which governs the budgets of the 12 Member States which share the euro - has been a source of tension between EU countries and the European Commission for several years, but it may finally be reformed, according to enlargement commissioner Günter Verheugen.

In an interview with German daily Berliner Zeitung, Mr Verheugen said that there were "legitimate discussions" going on in the Commission over "whether the flexibility in the pact is sufficient to deal with situations that may not have been foreseeable ten years ago".

"Maybe we should go about reforming the Stability Pact", concluded the commissioner.

More arguments

Mr Verheugen's comments are likely to provoke intense debate since the Stability Pact has a history of stirring up trouble both between individual member states and between member states and the Commission.

Some countries are already very outspoken on the issue. The Dutch finance minister, Gerrit Zalm, has criticised the decision of the European Commission to give France an extra year to comply with the rules of the pact.

His spokesman told the Financial Times Deutschland, "it is very dangerous for the euro, the European economy and the credibility of the European project when rules are disregarded and the long-term, sustainable development of public finances are endangered in the larger countries".

Experts believe that the Commission acted leniently in giving Paris an extra year in which to reduce its budget deficit - tax receipts minus pubic spending - to below the three percent maximum allowed by the pact.

But it also told France that it must reduce its structural deficit - the part of the deficit which does not take how the economy is performing into account - by about 6 billion euro more than the French authorities intended.

French budgetary minister, Alain Lambert, told French daily Le Monde over the weekend that this demand was "unattainable" given the current economic situation in France.