Plans for referendum-less treaty change under way

PLANS to change the EU Treaty without having to put it to a referendum were taking shape in Brussels as part of a plan to put the euro on a safer footing.

But experts working on the highly technical issue agree that even using a fast track method it could be another year before the changes demanded by Germany are completed.

The changes would be a major step towards economic union and would give Brussels considerable powers and oversight of eurozone member states’ budgets.

Ireland has been against Treaty change and Taoiseach Enda Kenny warned German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin earlier this month that it could open the floodgates to demands for a whole series of changes by member states.

But the changes are seen as an imperative step before Germany and some of the other triple-A rated countries would agree to eurobonds that would mean individual member states were no longer at the mercy of the markets.

It could also free up the European Central Bank that so far has limited its purchase of sovereign bonds of states under pressure and encourage it to provide longer term funding to the banks.

Legal experts, preparing a proposal for the next EU leaders summit on Friday week, are concentrating on changes to one of the 37 protocols added to the EU Treaty that deals with the functioning of the EU.

One of these protocols, number 14, deals with the Eurogroup and it could be changed by member states’ leaders and then by their parliaments, avoiding the need for a referendum in Ireland and the need for a lengthy process to change the Treaty proper.

Because it is done inter- governmentally it requires just a majority of member states to agree which would mean that Britain — that has severe reservations — could not use its veto.

It is understood there are details to be ironed out yet such as getting France’s President Nicolas Sarkozy to concede that sanctions on rule breaking countries would apply automatically and could not be avoided by a gentlemen’s agreement as occurred in the past.

France also has problems with enshrining the rule — known as the Golden Rule — over debt and deficit limits into law which is a core demand by Germany and to which Ireland has agreed.

They also dislike the idea of giving the Euro Commissioner Olli Rehn the role of telling nations to adjust their budgets and when they are out of line and slapping on the sanctions.

Mr Sarkozy is due to make a speech later this week and German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to address the Bundestag on Friday and both are expected to address the treaty change idea ahead of next week’s summit.