BRATISLAVA, October 29, (WEBNOVINY)- Leaders of EU member countries have endorsed a permanent debt-crisis mechanism at their Brussels summit, which should come into effect in 2013. After a two-day meeting of the European Council, Slovak Prime Minister Iveta Radicova said that the important moment of the EU meeting was that it openly named problems and agreed on inevitable solutions to secure stabilization of the European region and the European economy, which would guarantee quality of the living standard of citizens of Slovakia and the European Union.
Radicova informed that member countries had adopted a decision to elaborate concrete principles and mechanisms of resolving the crisis and crisis prevention, which means that EU leaders have approved conclusions of the Van Rompuy Task Force. The decision implements in practice toughening the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact and heavier sanctions against the countries that breach them. The prime minister also remarked that the adoption of tougher sanctions against the states violating the rules of the EU budgetary policy was the „decision on punishing myself,“ which made this decision-making even more complicated.
According to the prime minister, the change regarding the introduction of the permanent debt-crisis mechanism is so serious that it has to be backed by the Lisbon Treaty. EU leaders have agreed that the European Commission and the permanent chairman of the European Council will prepare a proposal for incorporating the new mechanism in the basic treaty. The prime minister however underscored that it was not talked at all on reopening the Lisbon Treaty as possible changes could be adopted through a re-write of the governing treaty or through changes to concrete paragraphs. If the agreed upon principles become a supplement of the basic treaty it will mean a shift in organization, management and control in the European Union.
One of the adopted conclusions tasks finance ministers of EU member countries and the European Commission to elaborate a method shortly how costs of the second pension pillar will be accounted in implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact.
SITA
