The emergence of an inner-core EU

March 29, 2020 / By mobanmarket

The emergence of an inner-core EU

Eurozone members take on the decision.making.

The 16 member countries of the eurozone have emerged as an inner core of EU decision-making during the debt crisis. 

In addition to holding two meetings at heads of state and government level (see main article), eurozone finance ministers (known as the Eurogroup) have held several extraordinary meetings, often by teleconference, a format unused prior to the crisis.

The Eurogroup crafted the eurozone’s €110 billion rescue package for Greece at extraordinary meetings on the 11 April and 2 May. It also drafted agreed language on support for Greece during an emergency teleconference on 10 February.

The Lisbon treaty describes the Eurogroup as an informal gathering. This informality means that it can resolve matters that do not fit neatly within the EU’s competences.

On 7 June it agreed the details of a €440 billion “financial stability facility” (in which Poland and Sweden, two non-eurozone countries, will also take part). This is an intergovernmental, rather than EU, initiative, so it made more sense for the signature of its statutes to take place in an informal (ie, Eurogroup) setting.

‘Eurogroup Council’

Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, has used the crisis to revive the call he made early last year for the eurozone’s heads of state and government to meet on a regular basis, with a permanent secretariat.

He would like these meetings to have official status within the EU’s institutional machinery – comparable to the Eurogroup, which the Lisbon treaty permits to take decisions and announce publicly. The Eurogroup is expected to recruit a small permanent secretariat in the coming months.

Sarkozy’s plans have provoked anxiety among non-eurozone governments, which fear being marginalised in a two-tier Europe. Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, said last week that the eurozone should not be “an exclusive élite within the EU”.

Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, and José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, have played down the likelihood of a ‘Eurogroup Council’. Van Rompuy said on 10 June: “We do not need new institutions to meet our goals. We need more effectiveness.”

Barroso, speaking last week after a meeting with Tusk, made clear his opposition to Sarkozy’s plan. “There is no acceptance [of the idea of] creating separate institutions,” he said. “We can’t have a split in the EU,” he added.

Decision-making forum

Van Rompuy said, however, that he would continue to use eurozone summits, as he thinks they are a useful forum for decision-making: “I think we can continue this pragmatic way of working.”