Если нельзя, но очень хочется, то можно EU Ministers Clinch Budget Pact, Germany Gets Way
Reuters
Sunday, March 20, 2005; 5:04 PM
By Lisa Jucca and Marie-Louise Moller
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union finance ministers clinched an provisional deal on Sunday to ease their much flouted budget rules after Germany won its key demand for special treatment for its huge unification costs.
A Luxembourg presidency source said ministers agreed in principle after nearly 11 hours of emergency talks to a rewriting of the Stability and Growth Pact that EU leaders are expected to endorse at a summit beginning on Tuesday.
The compromise offered the prospect of leniency for excess deficits incurred due to "the reunification of Europe," a veiled reference to the billions Berlin spends on former communist eastern Germany.
"There is an agreement in principle but there are still some technical details that will need to be clarified by Tuesday," the source told Reuters.
Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser earlier said it would be "a bit of a joke" to exempt spending on an event that happened 15 years ago, after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
( Read more... )