Saturday, November 5, 2011

Eurozone moving forward outside the EU Treaty framework? What's new about that possibility?

In the Wintour and Watt blog today, Saturday 5 November 2011, in The Guardian, titled: "Britain turns on 'disreputable' Germany as relations sour over eurozone crisis", I read:

"David Rennie, who writes the Bagehot column in the Economist, has one of the most important scoops of the eurozone crisis this week. Rennie, who has just returned from Berlin, reports that German officials are so angry with Downing Street that they are threatening to draw up a treaty just among the 17 members of the eurozone. This is what Rennie wrote: ..."

What scoop? It seems that since May 9 Spiegel International had "scooped" the scoop, as I posted in early September: "it seems, according at least to my reading of the 09/05/2011 "Divide and Rescue: Berlin Lays Groundwork for a Two-Speed Europe" report in Spiegel Online International that the Treaty that will move the Eurozone towards political union (uniform labour laws, budgetary "unification" (to what extent we shall see), etc etc) will not be an EU one, but, like Schengen (when it was set up), "hors EU"! That means that the UK, unless it joins this 1st speed union (ultra highly unlikely), will not have a say in it or get to vote on it! Any referendums will be by the participating states! Bazinga?!"

Here is full part of my Sept. 7, 2011 post "EU: Who kicked the can down the road? (mach 2)"

"Now, we come to maybe the most interesting bit:

While Cameron supports closer integration if the Eurozone becauses he thinks that the needed EU Treaty changes will give him a chance to negotiate in return for allowing the Eurozone to move ahead, repatriation of certain "competemces" back to the UK (from "Brussels"), it seems, according at least to my reading of the 09/05/2011 "Divide and Rescue: Berlin Lays Groundwork for a Two-Speed Europe" report in Spiegel Online International that the Treaty that will move the Eurozone towards political union (uniform labour laws, budgetary "unification" (to what extent we shall see), etc etc) will not be an EU one, but, like Schengen (when it was set up), "hors EU"! That means that the UK, unless it joins this 1st speed union (ultra highly unlikely), will not have a say in it or get to vote on it! Any referendums will be by the participating states! Bazinga?!

That also raises the issue of the role of the European Commission, the ECJ, the European Parliament, the Council of the EU, etc, as well as the European Council in the operation of the "EU Mach 2". It seems that the Eurogroup plus other, new, bodies, probably lean, will be set up to do the "job". The EU institutions will continue to operate the affairs of the EU27 but the "EU Mach 2" will have its own institutions. Can there be another way considering that:

a) Cameron wants to use an EU27 IGC to get his way, thus a change in the EU Treaties must be avoided by the rest.
b) Not all members of the EU27 will be participating in this "closer union"?

To be continued!

PS. That would also mean that the "hors EU" Treaty of the core union cannot change the EMU/Euro aspects of the EU Treaty, ie exit from the Eurozone/Euro will continue to be not an option. That IMO means that all 17 of the existing EZ members will participate in the core union, unless they figure out a way of having a Euro member not be part of the core union and still have the who thing work! Does not look likely!

PS2. Times are beyond interesting. But at least there is a reversal of direction, from backwards to forward. Unless of course Angela Merkel and/or the CDU change their minds, yet again!"

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