GERMANY AND the European Commission have dismissed claims by the French Europe minister that the EU/IMF safety net for distressed countries stands as a de facto change to the European treaties.
Pierre Lellouche said in an newspaper interview that the €750 billion rescue deal, agreed three weeks ago in the course of a fraught 11-hour negotiation, marked an implicit change to the union’s basic law and was akin to the adoption of a Nato-style mutual defence clause.
"It is expressly forbidden in the treaties by the famous no bailout clause," he told the Financial Times. "De facto, we have changed the treaty."
His remarks garnered immediate disapproval in Berlin and Brussels, where officials insist no aspect of the plan goes beyond the scope of the existing treaties.
“Berlin is firmly convinced that the package is fully compatible with EU and national law,” said an EU diplomat familiar with German thinking.
In addition to a €250 billion contribution from the IMF, euro zone countries agreed to guarantee up to €440 billion in loans for distressed members of the currency and the commission agreed to guarantee €60 billion.
A spokesman for economics commissioner Olli Rehn said the EU executive’s guarantee was in line with Lisbon Treaty. He added that that euro country guarantees were valid only for three years and were made on an intergovernmental basis outside the scope of EU law.
“I won’t comment on what Mr Lellouche said, but again, all I can say is that what we’re talking about here is that the EU is providing financial assistance where necessary,” the spokesman said.
“It’s not a bailout, it’s financial support. The decisions . . . led to a safety net being created which consists in the form of non-concessional loans, which are subject to strict conditionality.” The agreement made it clear that there was “total respect of the requirements of national constitutions and parliaments,” he added.
Mr Lellouche is no stranger to quarrels with France’s European allies.
Last year he provoked a diplomatic storm when he accused Britain’s Tories of adopting an “autistic” EU policy by withdrawing from the dominant European People’s Party (EPP) group in the European Parliament, a remark he later retracted.
“It is an enormous change,” Mr Lellouche said of the rescue deal. “The €440 billion mechanism is nothing less than the importation of Nato’s Article 5 mutual defence clause applied to the euro zone.
“When one member is under attack, the others are obliged to come to its defence.”
Paris and Berlin have sparred over chancellor Angela Merkel’s early reluctance to provide emergency aid to Greece.
However, Mr Lellouche said it was “normal” for Germany to defend its national interests.
“Since when did we expect Germany to act as cash cow indefinitely?”