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| Europe |
| Chirac’s budget plea creates EU storm |
| 2003-07-15 |
| France’s call to ease the eurozone’s strict budget rules has created an uproar at the meeting of eurozone finance ministers in Brussels. In his traditional Bastille Day interview, President Jacques Chirac called for a softening of the so-called Stability and Growth Pact which aims to keep public debt levels in check and maintain confidence in the euro. "This is July 14, the day the Bastille was stormed, and now it’s the day the stability pact has been stormed," said Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm angrily going into the meeting. "The storming of the Bastille was a better idea." Indeed. Which brave revolutionaries were turned loose? Four fraudsters, a couple of lunatics and a young noble. "We have no room for softening the pact, not even temporarily," said Finnish finance minister Antii Kalliomaki. "We shouldn’t even be discussing this - it’s one of the pillars of our economic policy and the single currency," said Austria’s economy minister Karl-Heinz Grasser. The row over the stability pact has been raging for months, reaching a climax when the president of the European Commission called the rules "stupid" and then backtracked furiously. Real world economics must be oh-so-tiresome for a left-wing Poo-bah like Prodi. The rules - which dictate that a budget deficit cannot exceed more than 3% of national economic output - were designed to help regulate the economies of the 12 nations that use the euro. But, with Germany and France in particular suffering from an economic slowdown, these countries have already exceeded the limit in order to stimulate growth. France, the eurozone’s second biggest economy, had a public deficit of 3.1% in 2002 and the European Commission’s provisional forecasts see it rising to 3.7% this year and 3.6% in 2004. Germany, meanwhile, has just initiated hefty tax cuts in order to spur growth, but insists it can still keep its deficit below 3%. "Stability is not the priority right now," said German Finance Minister Hans Eichel, "we need growth." But he stopped short of echoing President Chirac’s call for a relaxing of the rules, saying the finance ministers knew how to apply the rules in a "reasonable and coordinated way". Prior to Mr Chirac’s comments, the ministers had been hoping to avoid discussing the controversial pact again, leaving it for the autumn agenda. Then ministers will have an even tougher decision to make - whether to impose hefty fines on those countries who continue to offend. And they’d expect the French to pay? |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #14 What you all seem to ignore is that France can want a lot of things... but it won't get them. No country (not even the Germans who could need a more flexible stability pact as well) have supported the French. And as the saying goes: "Pacta Sunt Servanda." So much for France "dominating" the EU. |
| Posted by: True German Ally 2003-7-15 2:36:44 PM |
| #13 Not meaningless - reprehensible. Because not only was no actual liberation performed, but the governor of the Bastille was murdered after surrendering. A significant portent of things to come. |
| Posted by: buwaya 2003-7-15 12:40:37 PM |
| #12 Aris, Bulldog, and all: Let's grow up a bit and stop insulting each other. Civil, well-reasoned discourse is the goal. You're going to need to be making a PayPal donations soon -- you're costing Fred a lot of traffic for little value! Meanwhile, the point is that the EU made a budget rule and France and other members are breaking it. What does it mean that the EU's second biggest economy violates the rules and then calls for a softening of the rules? Is France declaring independence from the EU? Or just abiding by the rules only when it suits? |
| Posted by: Tom 2003-7-15 12:16:10 PM |
| #11 Well, at least the French threw out the Royal parasites--England is still supporting that bunch of inbred Germans |
| Posted by: Not Mike Moore 2003-7-15 12:06:02 PM |
| #10 Hello? Bastille Day is a side note. Who cares? The point is that France wants a ticket to ride. "From out of the west, with clattering hooves and a cry of 'Hi-Yo, Welfare! Away!'" |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-7-15 10:19:46 AM |
| #9 Yes, Aris, your spelling is spot on, but I try to limit my cursing for the sake of sensitive souls and internet censorbots. Making a disparaging coment about something does not indicate you think it's meaningless. I don't suppose George Mallory believed ascending Everest to be a meaningless exercise when he responded "because it's there" to the question "why do you want to climb it". Storming of the Bastille was important symbolically; its immediate effect wasn't as glorious or triumphal as one might at first believe. I pointed out one of its overlooked or ignored aspects, which, being disparaging towards the French, is topical. ;) Read too much from between the lines and you'll forget the text itself. |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-7-15 10:05:35 AM |
| #8 In short my sentence corresponds "It'd be however wrong to say that..." instead of "You were wrong to say that..." Happier now? And it's spelled bollocks, I think. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2003-7-15 9:28:11 AM |
| #7 Dude. You made a disparaging comment about the storming of Bastille. I agreed with the facts you mentioned, that there was nobody really worth freeing in there, but indicated that nonetheless we can't say the event was meaningless. You didn't indicate whether you thought it meaningless or not, and I didn't say you said it. Each of us made a rather heavy implication on whether we considered it meaningful or not, of course. :-) Should I have added a "however" in there, as in "I think that to say *however*" ?? Consider it added, if you're gonna be that nitpicky. :-) |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2003-7-15 9:25:43 AM |
| #6 Well then Aris, who did "say the storming of the Bastille was meaningless", if not me? The Dutch Finance Minister? An invisible commentator whose posts only you can read? Or were you conversing with yourself, hypothesising on the error of judgement of anyone who should be foolish enough to consider the storming of the Bastille "meaningless"? |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-7-15 9:15:05 AM |
| #5 Thank you for your contribution, anonymous idiot. It's not circular reasoning to say that I never accused someone of what he's accusing me of accusing him. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2003-7-15 8:54:10 AM |
| #4 Bulldog The circular logic that Aris uses places his head firmly up his rectum far enough to see daylight. dorf |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-7-15 8:14:58 AM |
| #3 Where did I say that you used the word "meaningless"? |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2003-7-15 7:15:04 AM |
| #2 "...to say the storming of the Bastille was meaningless..." To say bollox is your trademark, Aris. Where is the word "meaningless" in my comment? |
| Posted by: Bulldog 2003-7-15 6:40:24 AM |
| #1 I think that to say the storming of the Bastille was meaningless because no revolutionary was actually in there is like saying that a certain tea shipment being thrown overboard in a certain English colony was also unimportant... From what I gather both actions had more symbolic meaning than actual, but that doesn't make either action meaningless. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2003-7-15 6:05:38 AM |