What difference is there between your proposal and the « euro zone budget » proposed by the French and German governments ?

In June 2018, in the Meseberg Declaration, the France-Germany Partnership agreed on a roadmap to set up a budget for the Euro Zone by 2021. The stated aim of this budget is convergence within the Euro Zone and its stabilisation. There are many differences between our project and this one.

Generally speaking, the Macron-Merkel project is extremely vague, whereas ours is precise: the vagueness of the Macron-Merkel project is all the more problematic particularly as it sustains all the anti-European delusions. For example, Euro-sceptics can allude to the risk of enormous transfers between countries which nobody can deny. Our project avoids this by placing a ceiling on transfers between countries drastically and explicitly.

Furthermore, the budget in the Macron-Merkel project only exceeds GNP by a few tenths of a point, whereas ours rises to 4% of GNP (or more, if the European Assembly so decides).

Next, the Macron-Merkel project in no way changes the opacity of the present European governance (the governance referred to is based on the Eurogroup, the Commission and the ESM (European Stability Mechanism) whereas our project is based on an in-depth democratisation of Europe, with the creation of a democratic European Assembly constituted by national and European elected members, who will have the final word over other instances on voting of the budget.

Finally, the budget proposed here is more ambitious than a mere income stabilisation or convergence tool. This is a budget which aims at creating public goods and implementing collective projects for the European Union as a whole.

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This post was written by admTDEM