Eurocommissaris Reding bekritiseert opnieuw Frankrijk over het Frans-Duitse voorstel tot verdragswijziging voor een financieel reddingsfonds (en)
EUOBSERVER i / BRUSSELS - EU i justice commissioner i Viviane Reding i has opened a new front with Paris after her month-long row over Roma expulsions, brandishing as "irresponsible" a Franco-German plan to change the EU treaty and allow for a permanent rescue fund for troubled euro-countries. France reacted angrily to the new "insult".
"To come up with chimeras about new treaties looks absolutely irresponsible to me," Ms Reding told German daily Die Welt on Tuesday (26 October).
She particularly criticised the backroom-deal brokered last week in the French resort of Deauville, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy i and German Chancellor Angela Merkel i were meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev i.
The French leader granted his support to Ms Merkel's push for an EU treaty change in return for Berlin's backing for political controls over proposed financial sanctions for eurozone deficit states. Germany insists a treaty change is necessary in order to comply with German constitutional requirements, and is keen to develop a permanent EU rescue fund out of the temporary backstop mechanism agreed this summer.
"European decisions are not taken in Deauville, also not by two members alone. They are taken in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg by 27 member states, based on a solid proposal which is in the interest of all 500 million citizens," Ms Reding pointed.
Germany, as well as Belgium, the country currently holding the rotating EU presidency, argues that the treaty change would not put the whole document up for debate, but would simply "add a few lines" to the text which will have to be ratified by all member states when Croatia joins the fold.
Yet Ms Reding was unimpressed. The Luxembourg politician who has been member of the European Commission since 1999, pointed to the ten-year long haggle among EU countries which finally secured the Lisbon Treaty coming into force last December and said this document "has enough elements to secure rescue mechanisms."
France rebuked Ms Reding promptly and accused her of "insulting" Paris yet again, after an unprecedented stand-off last month over its controversial Roma expulsions.
"The terms this European commissioner uses to denigrate the France-German proposals are unacceptable and of the same tenor as the insulting language, which I will not forget, used against France during the controversy that she herself fuelled over the Roma," France's EU affairs minister Pierre Lellouche said during a debate in the Senate.
But on the content, Ms Reding is by no means alone in her criticism. Economic and monetary affairs commissioner i Olli Rehn i also warned EU leaders congregating on Thursday and Friday in Brussels from giving into the temptation of a treaty change.
Mr Rehn said he would "by far prefer" that national leaders avoid this move and pointed to the "moral hazard" of rendering permanent a temporary rescue mechanism established for euro-countries, which expires in 2012.
By that, he means that states would not have the proper incentives to observe the strict deficit rules of the euro-zone, since they could always tap the common rescue fund.
Mr Rehn also came out strongly against German calls to suspend voting rights for repeat offenders, saying "my personal view as a committed European" is that such a move "is not necessarily in line with the idea of an ever-closer union".
The European Parliament i, which also has a say in economic policy of the Union, is also wary of the Franco-German proposal.
"I'm very sure that the Deauville deal is not the end of the story," said Guy Verhofstadt i, the leader of the parliament's Liberal Democrats. "It's only the beginning."
And to smaller member states, the idea of a Franco-German 'diktat' seems even less palatable. Luxembourg foreign minister Jean Asselborn on Monday said the carve-out "leaves a bad taste," not only because Berlin and Paris appear to be dictating EU requirements, but because "there is a risk that we will be plunged back into months and years of navel-gazing."