The bully in the room?

„European leaders came to Brussels complaining about «being bullied into a position» by France and Germany. But even before today's summit started, they seemed to be succumbing to the intimidation.

Nobody likes the German-French call to reopen the treaties of the European Union to enshrine stronger means of imposing fiscal discipline on the 16 countries using the euro. Even more annoying was the way it was made, in a joint communiqué issued from a summit in Deauville just as EU finance ministers were arguing in Luxembourg about when and how to impose financial sanctions on those breaching the euro zone’s budget rules. To some extent, the French and the Germans are damned if they agree, and damned if they don’t. A deal is criticised as an imposition; a disagreement is denounced as causing paralysis. (...)

The German government wants to amend the treaty because it fears that its constitutional court, which has before it a lawsuit against the current temporary €750 billion IMF-backed fund, will find it to be illegal. A treaty amendment would seek to reconcile a permanent fund with the existing, but ambiguous, «no bail-out» clause. In any case, Mrs Merkel wants to demonstrate that the German taxpayer will not be made to bear the cost of profligate states. So whether for legal or political reasons, Mrs Merkel needs treaty change. And these days, in Europe, what Mrs Merkel wants Mrs Merkel almost always gets.”