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| Title: | Economic Governance in the European Union
: The Spring European Council of 2005 |
| Series: | (A View from Brussels; Volume 3, Number 9) |
| Author: | Peter Ludlow |
| ISBN: | 9077110100 : 9789077110102 |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Size: | 210x300mm |
| Pages: | 44 |
| Weight: | .188 Kg. |
| Published: | EuroComment - May 2005 |
| List Price: | 6.5 Pounds Sterling |
| Availability: | In Print |
| Subjects: | European studies |
Like all European Councils in the post-Seville era, the Spring European Council of 2005 began long before the heads of government and state assembled in Brussels on 22 March. A substantial part of Peter Ludlow’s paper is therefore devoted to the preliminaries. The four major themes of the meeting were: reform of the stability and growth pact: the overhaul of the Lisbon strategy, sustainable development and climate change. Drawing on sources beyond as well as in the public domain, Ludlow analyses the making of the Conclusions against the background of lively and at times heated debate in the Council and noisy protests on the streets. Its principal focus is as usual on the Presidency, currently held by Luxembourg. In an opening section, Ludlow places the events of the past few months in a broad historical and conceptual framework. The agreements that were eventually arrived at in Ecofin and the European Council are undoubtedly flawed. This is not however particularly surprising, given the complex balance between centralised and decentralised decision-making required by the treaties. The shrill, tabloid-style articles that appeared in supposedly serious newspapers proclaiming the death of both the stability and growth pact and the Lisbon strategy are therefore entirely inappropriate. The changes to both the pact and the strategy that were agreed by the Spring Council improved both. In a system in which the pace of all is heavily conditioned by the speed of the larger states, there can however be no major advance until the governments of Germany and France are willing and able to carry out the economic reforms that both so obviously need. The EU, working through the revamped Lisbon process and by other means, can apply pressure. The vital decisions can only however be taken in Berlin and Paris.
Introduction; Economic Governance in the European Union; The Stability and Growth Pact (Paragraph 3 and Annex II); Relaunching the Lisbon Strategy (Paragraphs 4-41); Sustainable Development (Paragraph 42); Climate Change (Paragraphs 43-46); Some General Conclusions.
