@ Tonio suite

S’agissant de la démocratie et du respect du droit des Etats, c’est bien en son nom propre (et non en résumant l’opinion d’autrui) que parle DSK. Il ressort de son discours qu’il pense vraiment qu’il faudrait tenir le Conseil (= les Etats) davantage à l’écart des grandes décisons, et privilégier une impulsion par le « centre ( = la Commission et Bruxelles en général) même s’il pense que ce ne sera pas réalisable tout de suite.

Voir à cet égard ce long extrait sans coupure ni résumé de ma part :

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A center-driven agenda

How can such a comprehensive reform agenda be best achieved ? There is no single grand solution, but challenges on this scale can only be solved in a collaborative manner. Just look at the lessons of recent European history. When the agenda is driven by the center, things happen. Think of the single market program, or of monetary union. But when the agenda is left with the nations, things stall. Think about labor and service market reforms, especially through the Lisbon agenda.

Peer pressure has not served Europe very well. It’s time to change course. The center must seize the initiative in all areas key to reaching the common destiny of the union, especially in financial, economic and social policy. Countries must be willing to cede more authority to the center. Mechanisms must be redesigned to give them the incentives to reform.

Progress is being made on a number of fronts, but we are still some distance away from an effectively functioning economic union—the missing “E” in EMU !

Many issues revolve around budgets. The most ambitious solution—extensively discussed in the academic literature—would be to create a centralized fiscal authority, with political independence comparable to that of the ECB. The authority would set each member’s fiscal stance and allocate resources from the central budget to best hit the dual targets of stability and growth.

Such a leap toward European political integration appears unlikely in the foreseeable future, but we should exploit other ways of moving in this direction. There are at least two ways.

One is to shift the main responsibility for enforcement of fiscal discipline and key structural reforms away from the Council. This would minimize the risk of narrow national interests interfering with effective implementation of the common rules. Within the existing institutional context, the Commission—as the guardian of Europe’s treaties—could play such a role. A separate, independent, institution could work as well.

Finally, it would make sense to increase the size of centrally-allocated budgetary resources. This means going beyond the current EU budget, strictly limited by the Treaty, to a system that uses more transparent EU-wide instruments—such as a European VAT, or carbon taxation and pricing."