Europe’s track record of getting its member states to abide by common debt rules is clearly a mixed bag. Perhaps not for long, if Günther Oettinger, the German energy commissioner has his way.
In an interview with Bild, the mass-circulation daily, Oettinger floats a new debt-busting plan which he hopes might succeed where past treaties have failed: countries with excessive debt should have to live with the mortification of having their national flags flown at half mast outside official European Union buildings.
The unconventional idea – acknowledged as such by the commissioner – “would only be a symbol, but it would be a powerful deterrent,” he said.
It’s an off-beat addition to a debate which was dominated this week by the Dutch, whose prime minister and finance minister rather more seriously suggested a new EU budget tsar and a series of penalties that could lead to ejecting repeat debt offenders from the euro. Negotiations between the parliament and national governments on the so-called “six-pack” of legislative proposals to bolster EU oversight of national finances also made rapid progress after a few quiet months.
There isn’t much detail of the Oettinger plan, sadly. One could imagine a sliding scale of flag hoistage, with model student Estonia (debt: 6.6 per cent of gross domestic product) floating highest, and other flags slipping down gradually until Greece (143 per cent) somewhere near the ground.
Asked today about the Oettinger’s flag plan, a Commission spokeswoman seemed to warm to his “strong and graphic language”. But ultimately she termed it “a personal view” – code for an idea which is definitely not endorsed by the Commission as a whole. In fact, the spokesman for Olli Rehn, the economic and monetary affairs commissioner, later clarified the “far-fetched” idea might not even have been Oettinger’s at all, just an old proposal he was repeating.
One potential obstacle is that the EU generally shuns flying the 27 national flags in front of institutions. The 28 flag poles in front of the Commission’s Berlaymont headquarter (pictured above) are all topped by EU gold-star flags – which could perhaps all be flown at half mast for the duration of the debt crisis.
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