22/06/2012
Having dropped the ball when it comes to reporting the forthcoming European Council, and its vital importance as a precursor to a new treaty, the British media have been equally tardy about registering the "big four" summit in Rome today.
Apparently catching up is the
Guardian which, as part of the "Europe project", has teamed up with five continental newspapers to interview Mario Monti on the eve of this summit. The result is the headline above with a
brief report. The former could not be more at odds with the report in
La Stampa if it tried.
The
Guardian in its typically lurid headline (redolent of the Hague claim of a "week to save the pound") is having Monti tell us that "we have a week to save the eurozone", which is not at all what the Italian newspaper is telling us.
But then, reading the actual
Guardian report, the text coalesces with the continental reports, and indeed with a
Reuters story. It is in the latter that you see the headline: "Monti says EU hinges on summit talks outcome", with the text telling us that individual eurozone countries face "escalating speculative attacks" unless a lasting solution to Europe's financial crisis is found at the European Council.
Thus, it is not that there is one week to save the euro. Monti is telling us how vital the European Council is, in one week's time.
Only slightly down page are we then told that the Council "is expected to tackle long-term plans for closer fiscal and banking union" in a bid to strengthen the euro's foundations. Although the dread words "political union" are not mentioned, it can be inferred from previous reports that this is also high up the list.
This fits entirely with my
overnight report, which puts the emphasis entirely on the European Council and frames today's summit on the context of pre-treaty manoeuvring. Everything points to the "colleagues" staking all on a new treaty.
Nor do you have to be especially bright to read this as an objective for, in the
La Stampa report, Monti obligingly tells us that this is the case. "I see Los Cabos (G20) as a promising start", he says. Rome (today's meeting) is another "important step".
Posing the rhetorical question, as to whether it is a step towards increased integration of the whole Union, or an attempt to form a hard core, to agree a common policy by the governments of the four largest euro area economies.
By way of an answer, he tells us that the minimum and "indispensable" objective of the European Council is a "medium-term perspective of strengthening the integration". The idea is that the markets become convinced that there is "the will to make the single currency indissoluble and irrevocable".
There, you see the nub of the game which was beginning to emerge at the
Spring Council - a two-level strategy of firefighting on the one hand while, on the other, putting in place a new treaty as a long-stop. This, in theory, puts a lid on recurring crises. With the Bundesbank
making it clear that there can be no half measures, the target is now full political union, remedying the "birth defect" of economic and monetary union.
Thus says Monti, in the
Süddeutsche Zeitung, in order to get safely out of the crisis, "a lot of integration required". And it must be done quickly. Sometimes, he says, "Europe seems to pay homage to a praise of slowness", adding: "This principle should be abandoned".
Read carefully into
The Guardian piece and you will find the essence of that message, but you have to read carefully or you miss it. With the
Failygraph, journalists are focused on the short-term and are missing the longer play. And there, would that they knew it, we are in for a wild ride.
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