Europe does not want to do, rigor

Brussels unveils Wednesday morning the first tools to enhanced budgetary discipline, but a return to social and political sensitivity, the eyes of many European leaders have already turned to the next step: how to reduce public deficits without killing one fragile recovery in short, prevent the patient from dying European healed.

Rigor or growth, the controversy Twenty-Seven do not extinguished with the final summit which has a fiscal tightening priority number one, are privately EU officials. Rather, the debate may resurface in the fall when the purge has hit the pockets of Greeks, Spaniards and Portuguese. It is also the time when France – soon followed by Italy – the first budget scenarios draw a crucial election year.Orthodoxy dictated by Angela Merkel and Jean-Claude Trichet to "save the euro, is probably not the last word.

"There is much talk of economic government, but except to despair of hundreds of millions of Europeans, this can not be reduced to handle the stick, says a prime minister. The EU must express a more positive discourse. "Behind the facade of unanimity, the summit of 17 June has seen crack consensus on the severity. Behind closed doors, elected by a large country has told his peers that he would not go to elections on an austerity program. A head of government has launched neighbor that he cared more for his popularity figures that the percentage of public debt.

Belgium, which takes the presidency tomorrow "rotating" of the EU and is found to manage the discussion, already began work clearance.The idea, pushed by Finance Minister Didier Reynders, is (re) launch a series of European projects clearly identified, to support investment and growth fragile. "States should certainly spend less, but they can also spend more," they said in Brussels.

The European tax, a topic still taboo

The new president was careful to mention a program of "great works" in the Keynesian mode. But he is making concrete and go beyond the pale "Strategy 2020" established by the Commission and just confirmed the summit. Several tracks are proposed, such as the integration of national networks of high speed trains, the interconnection of gas pipelines, or a coordinated plan for European manufacturers for an electric car general public.

In lean times, is to find public funding.Seen from Brussels, one or more of the taxes in gestation could find was a second use: the tax credit, the tax on financial transactions, or the carbon tax. This does not transform one of these tax levies national European topic still taboo in the EU. Each nation would undertake to devote part of its revenue to a new coordinated investment effort. This is the kind of government economic component.

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