Graham Bishop's comments on the Van Rompuy Interim Report 'Towards a Genuine EMU'

15 October 2012

The October 18/19 Summit will be a decisive moment for Europe. Failure to agree a plausible path to the closer union that is now fully recognised as essential to preserve the euro will also spell the end of the European Union itself.

The award of the Nobel Peace prize underlines the dramatic consequence that could flow from a failure.

Council President van Rompuy’s Interim Report to the Heads of State/Government (HOSGs) is a powerful document but the key question remains about how much of it is already agreed by the HOSGs, rather than simply being a consensus of the four Presidents (Council/Commission/Eurogroup and Bank). The intense bilateral discussions with the Member States point to it already having some substantial measure of support. My annotations on the document – see attachment – show that this has the potential to trigger a historic change in the nature of the euro area as it consolidates into a single political union. The facts on the ground of existing economic governance agreements already make it very clear that the euro area is already in a de facto political union.

If the HOSGs agree to the preparations of a detailed proposal along these lines, then the exact shape of it will define that new political union quite precisely. How it will deal with the `out’ states will be one of the thorniest issues. The report talks of being `fair’ but that also means fair to the `ins’ – so there can be no question of an effective veto by the `outs’.


© Graham Bishop