House continues debate on ratification of Stability Treaty

As the House today continued its debate on the resolution to ratify the Stability Treaty, Coordination and Governance, former Labour Prime Minister Alfred Sant made it clear he was "reluctantly voting in favour".

Opposition leader Joseph Muscat has already stated that his side of the House would be supporting government in parliament over this resolution.

After Finance Minister Tonio Fenech gave his winding up speech, the minister, Labour MP Karmenu Vella and Sant started reading through the resolution, clause by clause, to comment and approve each clause.

Scrutinising the majority of the clauses covered so far, Sant insisted that the treaty was flawed in the sense that it gave importance to certain aspects but was very generic in others.

"While over the fiscal policy the treaty is quite clear on the objectives, yet on economic growth everything is up in the air," Sant said at one point.

The principle goal of the Stability Treaty is to bring about financial stability in the euro zone and the EU member states while also improving economic governance and coordination.

As put simply by shadow foreign affairs minister George Vella during his intervention, the ultimate goal is that the deficit levels of the signatories to the treaty don't surpass the 3% of GDP and that national debt remains below 60% of GDP.

Finance Minister Tonio Fenech explained that the treaty would bind the member states to make the extra effort and bring down their debt to more acceptable levels.

"The ultimate aim is to bring stability on a financial level. Then governments would then move on to better economic governance and coordination," he said.

Fenech explained that the treaty was not an economic plan to be moved in parliament for approval. "The treaty lays out the guidelines for fiscal and disciplined governance. It calls for the need of more structures where parliament is involved in the country's finances and mechanisms by which parliament scrutinises the government's work," he said.

Fenech added that when a government deviates from the goals established, the mechanisms would bring government before parliament. Such structures, he said, already existed in Holland and Germany.

The Stability Treaty also proposes the setting up of a watchdog to oversee that member states are adhering to their obligations.

"No one likes having someone controlling him. But at the end of the day, us politicians know that this is important. It is the reason why - on a national level - we have institutions, such as the Public Accounts Committee, supervising our work," Fenech said.

He insisted that the member states would retain their sovereignty in the sense that each individual parliament would decide how to implement the measures.

"The European Union's ultimate aim is that the work of member states is turned into economic growth."

Fenech said that it was history that formed the European Union and it was today's history gauging the way for more new measures and structures.

Reacting to comments that drew comparison between the European Union and the United States of America, Fenech said the two concepts were completely different. By way of example, he said that America could impose tax on its states, irrespective of their situation and impinge on their sovereignty. He said, that while the European Union intervenes to bail out countries or banks, America never did so.