The nonchalance with which the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, now President of the Council of Finance Ministers (Ecofin), appears to regard both the need to reform the EU's Growth and Stability Pact (GSP) and the Commission's legal challenge to ministers' suspension of its provisions is bewildering.
Mr McCreevy told journalists in Brussels on Monday that there was little point in the Commission bringing forward reform proposals for the GSP soon. "Ministers were of the view that more time would be required before seeking a reform of the Pact. There was little support for the Commission," he insisted, clearly sympathetic to what he saw as the prevailing mood. And yet, while never personally a fan of the EU's economic governance mechanisms, Mr McCreevy's laid back approach does the Irish presidency little credit. Nor is it in Ireland's interests.
The Commission has rightly insisted that Ecofin on November 25th last took decisions which "have political implications that go to the heart of the European integration process". The Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Mr Pedro Solbes, explained that, in bypassing the rules of the GSP "member-states deliberately chose to take an inter-governmental position. This changes the nature of budgetary surveillance". Ministers decided not only to let France and Germany off the hook, but to repudiate important agreed procedures under which the Commission could, in theory, force ministers to impose discipline on those breaking the GSP rules, whether large or small states.
The procedural issue, all that will be tested in the court, is far from a mere procedural issue. It goes to the heart of the role of the Commission in the Union's institutional mix and to the character of the Union as a rule-based polity. That role, and specifically the Commission's sole right to initiate legislation in the Council, is for small member-states the institutional quid pro quo for their willingness to abandon vetoes in favour of qualified majority voting. It is supposed to safeguard them against bullying by the larger states or the swamping of local interests.
Ireland, to date, has always seen the defence of the Commission and its prerogatives as a central strategic imperative. It is strange then that Mr McCreevy should dismiss the Commission's action as unhelpful instead of being its ardent champion - but then Mr McCreevy backed the original decision to put the GSP on hold. It is strange too that he does not regard the challenge of reforming the flawed GSP as a priority of the Irish presidency - on which the Cabinet's position is also unclear. This would be a creative use of politics over law.