Are judges the solution to the Euro crisis?
In the EUobserver, Leigh Phillips reports that certain European leaders are considering a quick and dirty fix to Europe’s fiscal governance gap–letting the judges handle it: While there are no papers or formal proposals making the rounds of the European chancellories, it is understood that Germany has been talking about a tweak to Article 126 ...
In the EUobserver, Leigh Phillips reports that certain European leaders are considering a quick and dirty fix to Europe's fiscal governance gap--letting the judges handle it:
In the EUobserver, Leigh Phillips reports that certain European leaders are considering a quick and dirty fix to Europe’s fiscal governance gap–letting the judges handle it:
While there are no papers or formal proposals making the rounds of the European chancellories, it is understood that Germany has been talking about a tweak to Article 126 of the EU treaty – the clause requires states to avoid excessive deficits – with the aim of re-opening the debate about countries that breach the Stability and Growth Pact, the bloc’s fiscal rulebook.
The plan would see the ECJ given the power to impose sanctions automatically without having to have such a move pass through the European Council, the body composed of the bloc’s premiers and presidents.
If sanctions and fines were wielded by judges instead of politicians, there would no longer be any fear on the part of the markets that the imposition of sanctions could still in principle be voted down.
The full text of the relevant provision is available here. The current version tasks the European Commission with monitoring governments’ deficits and reporting to the Council, which is authorized, as a last resort, to impose sanctions. I can’t imagine that European Court of Justice judges will be pleased to have this unenviable task foisted on them; and the underlying assumption of the proposed change is an interesting one: that supranational judges are somehow impervious to the pressures that sap the will of political leaders. Actually, there’s a pretty vibrant debate on the independence of international judges. See here, here, and here, just for starters.
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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