The Euro Crisis: The Fiscal Treaty – An Initial Analysis

The Euro Crisis: The Fiscal Treaty – An Initial Analysis

Written by Peadar o Broin.

EU Member States will sign a new treaty on the margins of the European Council meeting in early 2012. The treaty has been described by its proponents as the first foundation stone of a fiscal union, while its opponents have lambasted the agreement as a meaningless distraction from resolving the euro area’s debt crisis. This paper analyses the content in the fourth leaked draft of the ‘Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union’ – the European Union’s new fiscal treaty – and examines its impact on the current debt crisis.

Peadar o Broin is an associate research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies and was previously a senior researcher at the IIEA. A specialist in European law, he has lectured at UCD Law School and authored many reports on the European Union, its treaties and its institutions. During his time at the IIEA, he prepared the first consolidated English version of the EU treaties amended by the Lisbon Treaty and was a regular media commentator during Ireland’s Lisbon Treaty referendum campaigns.

This paper forms part of a series of working papers on the euro crisis by leading Irish commentators.