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With or without him

By Lisa Kittel

“Will there be another summit this year?”, a question put to Merkel afterthe summit finished yesterday. It’s true that there have quite been a lot meetings of late at the European Council. Merkel already seems to know every single correspondent by face, and eventually might even notice if they get their hair cut. As familiar as the press conference appears as familiar is the main topic: the Euro crisis.

But, although Angie still emphasises “Ladies and gentlemen, we can onlygo step by step”, this summit was a political course in the direction of legally binding commitments. Well, for everybody but David Cameron.

Have a look on the Without-Great-Britain-List:
To start a fiscal union, member states accept more constraints. They pledged, for example, to submit draft budgetary plans to the European Commission. They will also work on binding measures for countries with excessive deficits. Most importantly, they will finally transpose their good will and this new strong fiscal rule into their constitution or equivalent. This seems finally like doing something after having thought and thought both solutions and gloom and doom scenarios.Yes, next to ability to reason, our heads of state also needed theability to fantasise to think through the Euro crisis.

We have “ increased our financial resources”, meaning the money to transfer all into the Euro rescue fund. Euro area and member states will aim to make available additional resources of up to 200 billion euro in the IMF (International Monetary Fund). And the financial mechanisms are not only broader but also faster: The EFSF (European Financial Stability Facility) shall be deployed “quickly”, withleverage. And the sudden acceleration goes on: the ESM (EuropeanStability Mechanism) rescue fund shall enter into force in 2012instead of 2013.

Like the correspondents' buddy Merkel says, with the legal commitments and more institutional power for the Commission and the European Court of Justice, ”the rescue fund becomes a treaty”.

So17 euro zone countries and six others, Bulgaria, Denmark, Latvia,Lithuania, Poland and Romania, will conclude this fiscal treaty, which shall be introduced to European treaties afterwards.

And another early Christmas present: 20 years after the foundation of the monetary and political union, Angie and her European colleagues dare to admit faults: “We understood that the Monetary union must beplanted on a stronger base. We must overcome some failings.”

Afterthese without-Cameron-results, let’s wish Merry Christmas! -because there won’t be another summit this year.