Barroso’s warning

José Manuel Barroso’s article in The Observer today is a plea for relevance. When you cut through the usual EU jargon, what you find is the Commission President—predictably—declaring his opposition to German talk of an inter-governmental treaty among the 17 Eurozone members. He’s also warning the smaller Eurozone states that without the Commission’s protection their interests will be trampled on by the Germans and the French.

This is what he means when he writes that  “all member states need to support and trust the common supranational European institutions that were created after the second world war. It is precisely these supranational institutions that are the best guarantee for the respect of the agreed rules in a union of sovereign states. They have the independence and objectivity to ensure that all member states – those in the euro area and those outside – are treated equally.”

The relevance of this for Britain is that if German efforts to give the stability and growth pact legal force have to go through the European Union, then a treaty change will be required.