Merkel, Sarkozy to Tackle EU Deficits by (A)mending Lisbon Treaty

French President Nicolas Sarkozy (R) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel speak during a joint press conference on the sidelines of a tripartite summit France, Germany and Russia. EPA/BGNES

German Chancellor Merkel and French President Sarkozy have put forth amendments of the Lisbon Treaty in order to get EU member states to avoid excessive budget deficits.

Sarkozy and Merkel met Monday in the French resort of Deauville, where they went for a tripartite France-Germany-Russia summit together with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

At a joint press conference, the state leaders of France and Germany advertised their idea of amending the Lisbon Treaty as a way to compel EU members to be careful with respect to budget deficits.

“When a country has an excessive deficit and has not adopted appropriate measures after six months, there must be sanctions. The sanction procedure must be shorter and more efficient,” Sarkozy said after a meeting with Merkel, as cited by DPA.

Merkel said a new mechanism must be developed to react in a more responsible manner.

'For that, we need changes in the (Lisbon) Treaty,' she explained.

Sarkozy and Merkel made it clear they wanted to amend the Lisbon Treaty, which only entered into force a year ago after a troubled ratification process, by 2013 to reflect the need for a greater fiscal responsibility on part of EU member states in the wake of the crisis with Greece in the spring of 2010, which caused much trouble for the Euro Area as data cooking was revealed to have concealed Greece’s actual budget deficit.

Currently, 24 out of the 27 EU member states, with the exception of Luxembourg, Sweden, and Estonia, have been set under the EU excessive deficit procedure (including Bulgaria), which outlines measures that the member states should take to reduce their deficits to 3% threshold as stipulated by the EU Stability and Growth Pact.

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