PLUCKY FINNS HOLD OUT FOR CONSENSUS
Mystery of what non-Ezone countries had to say
Euro-zone finance ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday night finalised the Treaty scoping out the responsibilities of permanent euro bailout fund to replace the temporary EFSF, the ESM. But the meeting ran way over schedule, as Finland insisted on full ezone consensus on ESM bailouts…and today, The Slog and others found various press offices somewhat evasive on the exact content. What do the other 10 non-Ezone States think about it? As yet, nobody wants to say.
Over at Zero Hedge earlier today, Tyler Durden was having an epi about EU evasiveness on the subject of the final Draft of the ESM. He may well have a point….and at the very least, we all owe him a debt for flagging this up.
It was due to be finalised at the EU ECOFIN meeting last night. This was the official dance schedule:
‘The 17 ministers of the euro zone will then be joined by 10 ministers from the other European Union countries to finalize a treaty setting up the euro zone’s permanent bailout fund, the ESM.’
The only thing is, nothing got finalised until 4.00 am at least. When I rang the ECOFIN press office today, there was a lot of umming and huffing and bluffing…oh, didn’t we post it? And so forth. And then everyone was in a meeting.
The Foreign Office said ‘nothing to do with us’, which is bollocks: funny how the FCO has an open-door policy, up to but not including SNAFUs. And the Treasury said there would be a press release later this afternoon from ECOFIN, but no – they didn’t have any details. My old mole at the Trezz has retired sadly, and my Brussels mole isn’t party to this sort of stuff.
Three hours ago, Der Spiegel online confirmed that a deal had been done. But the EU release – significantly – says, ‘The 17 euro-zone countries have reached agreement on the contract for the permanent euro bailout fund’. Er…what happened to the other ten?
As yet we don’t have any official confirmation. But it’s clear from the Finnish media that their Finance Minister insisted on (and got) 85% consensus for any and all dispensing of bailout money. The lady concerned – social democrat Jutta Urpilainen – is clearly somebody who could teach Camerlot a thing or two about (a) paying attention and then (b) sticking around to bully the bullies.
But there remains enormous confusion about the size of this ESM. While writing this, I have had breaking input from The Slog’s Bankfurt Mole that – as he feared – Merkel is ready to compromise on the size of the fund – the Spiegel piece also confirms this. But Mario Monti wants a $750bn fund “at least”, Christine Lagarde and Mario Draghi want a $1 trillion fund, and the markets (along with the Americans) would like one 2.4 times the size. There’s a twist in the tail, too: raising the capital of the ESM will also require the 85% consensus upon which Finland has insisted. Won’t that be fun.
Much of this list-wishing, however, remains a fantasy: Eurozone countries are required to provide a total of €80bn in cash capital to the new ESM, but as six of them are broke, in practice very few will partake to any great extent: Berlin admits that its minimum contribution will be around €22bn. There will be a deal of argie-bargie in the Bundestag when CDU senior players realise that, in reality, Germany will have to cough up rather more than that.
Keep your eyes peeled for some dissembling obfuscation from Osborne’s spin-doctors the UK Treasury Press Release.
Related: How a local Greek negotiation went Global
[Emphasis added]
Please, John! Is it catching? You are coming down with debt-itis.
We need to put a stop to all this, and here you are joining in … no more debt! (Well, not until the next bubble anyway).
Your link to zero hedge comes up with:
Access denied
You are not authorized to access this page.
Zero hedge is the Bog’s Dollocks for output and I’m not sure which article you refer to.
Anyway, ‘Inflation?’ Bring it on. I remember when Rochdale were struggling in Division 4. Now, they’re struggling in Div 2. See how much better we are now? My income hasn’t improved for years but inflation will add a nought or two and make me feel much better.
Now I shall go and have a lie down.
Probably this :-
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-eu-finance-ministers-push-through-esm-treaty-fishy-fly-night-move
…and now I’ve had a lie-down I see that I typed Div 2, (a Freudian typo?) to where we are going, instead of Div 1 (where a new manager may hopefully keep us)
Sorry, Carry on chaps.
Meanwhile,Greece is still bust( hedgies,you are going to get nothing).There will be more debt rescheduling announcements in 2012 than Test match victories by England.
2.4 trillion? What planet are they on? re my previous comment, that amounts to some 5000 eur for every man, woman and child in the EU, and in fact roughly a year’s output – in other words these faceless unelected (for their international role) individuals are looking to sign away a year’s output of each of us with out so much as a by your leave, let alone any sort of vote.
Italy has begun a national transport strike today, so the fertiliser is approaching the ventilator here, and I suspect as the enormity of this scandalous crime sinks in they will be joined by their brothers in France and Germany as well – it could well be a long hot summer…
The answer to your question:
“What happened to the other ten?”
is that the 10 non-euro countries were observers and maybe commentators at the meeting but not actually parties to the ESM treaty, which is a treaty which the 17 eurozone states are being allowed to make just between themselves on the legal base of the EU treaty change agreed by all 27 EU leaders on March 25th 2011:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2011:091:0001:0002:EN:PDF
“EUROPEAN COUNCIL DECISION of 25 March 2011 amending Article 136 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union with regard to a stability mechanism for Member States whose currency is the euro (2011/199/EU)”
That radical EU treaty change is legally necessary before the eurozone states can proceed with their ESM; and as an EU treaty change it now awaits approval and ratification by all EU member states, with its Article 2 specifying a target date of January 1st 2013 for it to come into force – six months before the ESM treaty was originally supposed to come into force, but now six months after the proposed start of the ESM.
There’s absolutely no reason why Cameron should rush to introduce the Bill for the UK Parliament to approve that treaty change before its target date, and there are very good reasons why he should tell Merkel that he no longer intends to proceed with the ratification of her desired treaty change until certain other matters have been sorted out.
Denis
I’m aware of the ‘observer only’ rule, but like you am mainly intrigued by the shall we say less than explanatory nature of what Whitehall has put out. I probably didn’t get that across clearly enough.
I said it previously, when push come to shove……their hearts might not be in it.
We live in hope, even if we die in despair…
Apologies if I seem thick here, I have read the link from Denis several times….
As I understand it, the ESM relates to the States with the Euro currency. Does that mean the UK doesn’t have to contribute to it, along with the other non-euro states. There was a mention about it being available to help other non-euro states if it helped the state of the EU as a whole, but I still can’t find definitive stuff about who contributes (or else), and who potentially benefits (or not).
If it is a case of ‘you pay up or you’re dead in the water, but you won’t see a penny of it’, then the sooner Camerlot spell it out, the better to all concerned. Doesn’t Treaty change require a referendum?
Originally it was mooted that non-euro states might join the ESM treaty, but the draft signed last July only had eurozone states as signatories.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_Establishing_the_European_Stability_Mechanism
It only had:
“(7) Member States of the European Union whose currency is not the euro (“non euro area Member States”) participating on an ad hoc basis alongside the ESM in a financial assistance operation for euro area Member States will be invited to participate, as observers, in the ESM meetings when this financial assistance and its monitoring will be discussed. They will have access to all information in a timely manner and be properly consulted.”
But that was the draft ESM treaty then, not whatever replacement draft ESM treaty has been agreed now, which as far as I know so far hasn’t yet been published.
Back in October Hague made a formal statement ruling out a referendum on the enabling EU treaty change, European Council Decision 2011/199/EU:
http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/eu-section5-statement
We all know where this is going don’t we? and we are powerless to resist.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9036199/Tainted-former-EC-president-Jacques-Santer-to-raise-money-for-EU-bail-outs.html
JW, why am I all of a sudden unable to post here?
Is this a variant of the Epimenides paradox?
No it’s not – I’m trying to post something connected with European Arrest Warrants that looks to be very sinister! FIVE times I’ve tried now and on THREE occasions I get the notification:
“Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!”
Sure I have, so WHY is it not showing anywhere?
Panic over – I forgot to knock out the formatting that was on on the webpage that I c&p’ed – see below.
Talking SH*T in 23 languages.
Very strange – I’ve posted this 5 times now, it’s not showing from the first posting (it would have been comment Nr. 11) and for the following 3 attempts I keep getting this message:
“Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!”
Lets see what happens when it’s an answer to kentucky –
Just received this – it’s an ad placed by a firm based in Almere, not far from where Gemz lives.
“Piet Bloggs (name changed) is taking part in a call for tenders.
Subject of text:
The tenderer will be requested to translate documents related to EU’s core activities and to its day-to-day administration, including:
European Arrest Warrants (EAW), European Evidence Warrants (EEW) and supporting documents,
Rogatory letters, (for those unfamiliar with the term, a.k.a.”interrogation reports”)
Requests for Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA),
Minutes to co-ordination meetings,
Case-related documents
official letters and faxes addressed to / sent by Eurojust,
tender documentation (e.g. tender specifications, tenders submitted by tenderers, etc.),
contracts,
co-operation agreements,
web pages,
press releases,
speeches and presentations,
documents related to meetings and seminars (minutes, reports, etc.),
Administrative Director’s decisions,
College decisions,
College briefing notes,
College agendas etc.
We are looking for translators who are native speakers of the target language for all 23 EU languages. (…) Translators who have a special security clearance, please note this in your cv.”
Is it innocent or is it ominous? Is the Obrigkeit (= ‘the powers that be’ or ‘the authorities’, but with a sinister connotation) expecting a large increase in its workload?
European Arrest Warrants et.al are one thing, but ‘tender documentation + contracts + co-operation agreements’ – what the hell have they got to do with law enforcement? That is surely something for the official purchasing departments, not day to day work for the legal eagles.
Or, are we about to see the resurrection of encampments with lots of ‘temporary’ structures, such as Nissen huts, Romney huts and ‘spiders’, being built in out of the way places?
This ‘College’ thingamajig – a euphemism for ‘Star Chamber’?
Or is it perhaps time for my medications?
It looks to me just like a normal entry in OJEC for tenders for “government agency work” in this case the outsourcing of administration.
If the value of the work is above a certain threshold value then by the rules the work has to be put out as advertised
Not this one by chance
http://www.tendersdirect.co.uk/Search/Tenders/Live.aspx?ID= 000000003524130§=T117&cat=32&Keywords=translation&Source=Keywords
V.J. Yes, take your medicine and have a lie down. It’s a blog and you’re .filling it with stuff you should be talking to your doctor about.
@ Richard G
Yes, I can well guess where it came from – about 450 or so moons ago I was quite often a member of the Royal Engineers “Tender Board” in HQ BAOR, where we were buying timber and other building supplies from local vendors.
The bit that struck me here is the theme spread of the documents to be translated; in what is allegedly nothing more than a glorified public prosecutors office. For example, what on earth would they have to do with “tender documentation, contracts and co-operation agreements?” Aren’t they supposed to be pursuing exclusively cases of criminality? If yes, then what are they likely to put out to tender? Or are narks/informers going to be subject to a tender procedure before being taken on – but not their victims afterwards? ;-)
When one recalls how the NKVD and the SS/RHSA/Gestapo developed, to eventually become a state within a state – Eugen Kogon, who spent some 9 years cooped up in Buchenwald, titled his memoirs “Der SS-Staat”/”The SS State” – then one could perhaps be forgiven for thinking that someone somewhere is laying the foundations for a resurrection of one or the other.
This has been posted before, but just in case anyone has not seen it here it is again:
http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/Roubini-Global-Meltdown-economic/2012/01/23/id/425171?s=al&promo_code=DFE0-1
This guy has been pretty accurate in the past,so tighten your seatbelt.
Dr Doom usually gets it right. He had to mumble about the double dip a few times, but his analysis of the carry trade was good in my view.
“But a more important factor fuelling this asset bubble is the weakness of the US dollar, driven by the mother of all carry trades. The US dollar has become the major funding currency of carry trades as the Fed has kept interest rates on hold and is expected to do so for a long time. Investors who are shorting the US dollar to buy on a highly leveraged basis higher-yielding assets and other global assets are not just borrowing at zero interest rates in dollar terms; they are borrowing at very negative interest rates – as low as negative 10 or 20 per cent annualised – as the fall in the US dollar leads to massive capital gains on short dollar positions.”-Mother of all carry trades”–by Nouriel Roubini November 1 2009
The dollar became stronger as a refuge shelter from the storms. It still hold as high position as the euro sinks.
The super-high debts of the US, UK and EU cannot be sustained. Inflation is the only relief valve.
So here again we have the self elected club of totalitarian fascists making it up as they go along, on the back of an envelope, and then keeping it all off record and as obscure as possible, whilst making the world news headlines. Most of the 27 members haven’t been allowed much say either, they just get told where to sign because if they don’t they will have to pay a price. Finally, the Press are allowed access to the details and the whole affair is picked to pieces and the weaknesses are exposed for all to see.
This is happening with monotonous regularity, and the credibility of these self elected assholes is absolutely staggering.
How long is this NONSENSE going to be allowed to continue …???
Makes me want to reach for my gat.
The ratio17/27 is 63% or so, so, we wonder how Finland got such a process sanctioned. 27 x 85% is not quite 23 out of 27 countries leaving perhaps 5 potential veto sites.
Also, did all 26 besides Finland agree?
Generally, politicos avoid strict numbers which gives them more leeway to mumble and drool.
Sounds to me like the ESM may be a step too far??? It probably can’t raise 80B let alone 500B. ECB printing is one thing but sending “real” money is another. Lots of hot air and large numbers but no cash. The beginning of the end?
marc
I think it’s piss and wind too: this lot talk a good game, then Klaus Regling gets involved and it all falls apart.
Pingback: GREEK DEBT TALKS: support grows for Slog theory that Troika ready to call lenders’ bluff | The Slog