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I do not often find cause for complaint about Dr North’s views, he is after all one of most knowledgeable and the clearest thinkers on EU matters to be found anywhere, and certainly on the internet he is un-assailed in at looking behind the meaning of any EU statement or document on any EU related subject, instantly getting to the heart of the matter and clearly explaining the ramifications of this or that policy.

The Tories have been offering us some policies on the EU which up to know have proved to be based more on wishes than actually holding any hope of fulfilment were they in the unlikely event to win the next election.

But as will be seen By Dr North’s post this may be about to change because of the commission’s decision not to enforce the Stability pact France and Germany have in effect taken back the power of their economic control into their own hands, thus the argument is extended that as they have broken the treaties with impunity Britain can also repatriate control of its fishing waters,

I suggested that The French and Germans do not have to take any initiative to ignore the Stability pact, they just ignore it. On fishing we would have to initiate a physical defence against any country that decided our declaration was against the treaty. So the thing could come to a head quite quickly. I wondered if that thought had been considered.

Another commenter phrased this in a much better manner “They are different, in the sense that the Spanish are not sailing into Germany, dropping nets and hauling up government money, thereby increasing the budget deficit. So the solution to the German budget deficit would not involve boarding and sequestering the vessels of other nations. But we may have to do that to solve our fish deficit”.
Dr North said “This has indeed been considered… as well as many other things. Watch this space”.
This could be interesting, because if he has had a hand in preparing the argument, I can be fairly certain that it will be air tight, so I will indeed be watching this space.

EU Referendum

When is it permissible to break EU treaty obligations with impunity? In its leader today the Daily Telegraph gives the answer: when it is the stability pact and the culprits are France and Germany.

This is on the back of its report in the business section, announcing that the commission is to let France and Germany off the hook. It has abandoned efforts to punish France and Germany for breach of the stability and growth pact, offering to turn a blind eye to abuse of EU spending rules – something which, incidentally, we picked up last Sunday.

According to the Telegraph, Joaquin Almunia, the newly appointed economics commissioner, has bowed to the political reality, and agreed that sanctions procedures against the eurozone’s two biggest economies would now be dropped. “Given the action taken by France and Germany, it would appear that no further steps are required at this point,” he said.

In its leader, the Telegraph very much labours the point, that it is the two states that insisted on the stability pact to curb excessive state spending which have now exceeded its maximum budget deficit (three per cent of GDP) for three years running.

It takes to task the French who “do not even bother to disguise the lamentable state of their public finances”. With Gallic sang-froid, they cheerfully admit that their deficit will again break the rules next year.

And, asks the Telegraph, will the commission fine the miscreants, as it is obliged to do under the pact? Not likely, it says, once again answering its own question. Brussels bent the rules a year ago to suit the Franco-German axis, and it is content to do so again. This amounts to a de facto repatriation of fiscal sovereignty to the nation states. So the stability pact is now as dead as a dodo, and even less lamented.

In marking its passing, however, the Telegraph fails to an make the obvious and important point. What this affair underlines is that, for all their legal content and framing, treaties are essentially political constructs. Unless there is the political will to make them work, and the signatories agree to be bound by them - not just at the point of signing or ratification, but through their life – they are so much waste paper.

This is something the people who spend their hours pouring over the minutia of treaty texts – the people whom we used to call “barrack-room lawyers” – so often forget. And this has enormous implications for the UK, not least if that unlikely event transpires – the Conservatives win the general election.

Then, we will see the commitment to repatriate the CFP come to the fore, and the barrack-room lawyers will immediately cry that this cannot be achieved for, if we do it unilaterally, we will be hauled up in front of the ECJ and fined zillions of euros. The response now is ready made – just like France and Germany were hauled so severely punished for breaching the Growth and Stability Pact?