A heated debate to be expected – not next week, but all the more next year

None of the outlined reforms in the Commission’s Wednesday press release
came as a real surprise as they have been promoted repeatedly over the last
months and discussed in some detail in the June reflection paper on the future
of the EMU.

But the Commission’s reform package does provide valuable
details at a time when the political debate on further EMU integration is
generally being kept very broad and unspecific. This also applies to the French
government that – despite President Macron’s inspired Sorbonne speech on
Europe’s future – so far has not provided any details on French reform
ambitions. The most in-depth contribution to the debate besides the
Commission’s communication so far has been the “non-paper” by former
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

But Schäuble does not head the
Finance Ministry any more. And given the lack of a new German government as
well as uncertainty regarding its future composition, the German position also
remains vague only one week before EA heads of state are expected to agree
on a roadmap for further EMU integration. Accordingly, the acting German
Finance Minister, Peter Altmaier, only gave a reserved comment on the
Commission’s advance, stating that the German government would read the
proposals very carefully and join the reform debate process next year with their
own positions. This gives more than a hint of what to expect from next week’s
Council meeting.