Choose the vocabulary from the text to talk about

● the problems the European Union is currently facing

● the reasons for those

11. Discuss the possible reasons for Merkel’s drive to rewrite the EU Treaty.

Look through the articles above one more time and try to make a list of recommendations which might help to tackle the problems the EU is currently facing.

Reading

13. Read the following article about European economies. The topic sentences have been removed from the paragraphs. Complete the gaps 1–11 with the sentences A–M. There are two extra sentences which you will not need to use.

Economic sanctions? Yes, please

The Economist

Sep 30th 2010

A. For Mr Barroso this “economic governance” is the only way to ensure the survival of the euro.

B. Hardline Eurosceptics accuse European officials of plotting a dictatorship.

C. The commission’s suggested solution is to appoint itself as fire warden, firefighter and prosecutor.

D. José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, keeps saying that the days of stimulus spending are over; now is the time for budget cuts.

E. All this would apply at first only to the euro zone, for which the legal powers are clearer.

F. They came to Brussels this week in their tens of thousands, from Finland to Greece, to say no to austerity.

G. All will want only a limited treaty change, perhaps one that applies only in the euro zone.

H. The idea is to impose sanctions early in the process rather than at the end, when they would only exacerbate a country’s fiscal problems.

I. The plans would give Brussels unprecedented power to intervene.

J. Powers like these might have done something about Greece. But would they have saved Spain or Ireland?

K. As Eurocrats tell it, most countries accept the thrust of these ideas.

L. None of this is the economic integration that federalists dreamed of.

M. This year’s Greek crisis exposed the inadequacies of the euro, a single currency without a joint economic or fiscal policy.

1. ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Their message was simple: the poor and the workers are being made to pay for the sins of the bankers and the speculators. To judge from some banners, they may have a new category of enemy: Eurocrats.

2.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..To ensure that members of the European Union maintain fiscal discipline, he proposed on September 29th stern new measures to give the commission power to scrutinise their budgets and impose hundreds of millions of euros’ worth of penalties on the profligate. Even those that pig-headedly refuse to reform their economies could be punished.

3.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..But outside the commission, demonstrators see things differently. To John Monks, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation, the EU is turning into a “punishment squad”. Left-wing members of the European Parliament are in a quandary. They want “more Europe”, but in this case more Europe means more austerity.

4.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Trouble in even a peripheral country like Greece, whose GDP is less than a tenth of Germany’s, posed dangers to all. Loose agreements have not proved strong enough to stop reckless behaviour. Sanctions exist, in theory, in the stability and growth pact, which requires euro-area countries to keep deficits below 3% of GDP and government debt below 60% of GDP, but they have never been imposed. Governments have been reluctant to criticise each other in public, let alone to mete out fines.

5.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. European leaders agreed earlier this month to submit their budgets to Brussels for scrutiny six months earlier than they used to. Countries will be monitored not just for excessive deficits and debts, but also for imbalances and falling competitiveness. Penalties for the recalcitrant will include warnings and deposits of up to 0.2% of GDP into, first, interest-bearing accounts, and then into non-interest bearing ones. In the end, these funds could be forfeited entirely.

6.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. It is also to focus as much on debt levels as on annual fiscal deficits. To reduce ministers’ temptation to protect each other, the commission suggests “reverse voting”: instead of a majority being required to impose sanctions, the penalties would be approved unless a majority votes them down.

7.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. But later there could be a parallel system, based on withholding future EU payments, for those outside the euro. This would have to wait for next year’s round of budget negotiations. Britain will keep its opt-out, but several non-euro members want shackles. As a senior EU source says, “it’s strange to hear countries saying: ‘We want sanctions!’”

8. …………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Germany has, for now, dropped its demand that heavily indebted countries should lose voting rights. Only a few quibble. France dislikes “semi-automatic” sanctions. Italy is against the focus on debt. Spain does not want sanctions for uncompetitiveness. Yet some scepticism is still in order. Even if EU leaders give their nod at a summit next month, months of detailed negotiations lie ahead. All 16 members of the euro zone now breach the 3% deficit threshold, and 12 also violate the 60% debt limit. They are not about to engage in mutual flagellation. The new rules will not be retrospective, and many sanctions will not bite until 2013. There is an escape clause to avoid penalties if Europe faces a general shock such as the financial crisis.

9.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Both had healthy public finances before the crash, and yet are now among the most troubled countries. Eurocrats argue that monitoring of imbalances and scrutiny by a new EU financial regulator could have spotted their problems sooner. Perhaps. But imbalances are easier to identify after a bust than during a boom. As one Eurocrat mockingly puts it, “We are now like communist central planners. We know everything.”

10.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………. It is more like a deal to police minimum standards than a joint economic policy. It is born of fear of the markets, not a love of Europe. Being whipped by Brussels is less scary than being flayed by bond traders. Hard discipline may be needed to preserve the euro, and to mollify German voters who do not want to bankroll irresponsible neighbours. But there are also dangers.

11.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Depoliticising sanctions to make them credible risks delegitimising them. The commission would be less of an impartial referee and more of an active player in domestic politics. Gauging competitiveness is a murky business, with no obvious benchmarks. In any case, balancing spending and taxes, deciding the level of wages and reforming labour markets ought to be tasks for elected leaders, not appointed bureaucrats. Will Mr Barroso and Olli Rehn, the commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, really tell the likes of Christine Lagarde, Wolfgang Schäuble, Giulio Tremonti and George Osborne what to do, and fine them if they refuse? The next time protesters hit Brussels, they may not just march past the commission, but right into it.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 798