It was not the crisis that dominated the spring summit of the European Council, but a focussed working atmosphere for consolidation and growth – the German Federal Government and the European Commission agreed on this point at the EU-De-Briefing of EM Germany. In the premises of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, an interested audience of 120 representatives from public administration and interest groups was informed about results of the summit.
When Dr Christine Pütz, advisor of the European department of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, referred to the conclusions of the summit in her opening speech, she maintained that the Heads of State and Government had drawn their lesson from the financial crisis. In contrast, the fiscal compact should be questioned from a democratic perspective as it weakens the European Parliament and thus European democracy.

Claudia Dörr, Head of Section in the European Division of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, highlighted the constructive and objective way of working at this summit: The Heads of State and Government were able to conduct economic coordination on the basis of comparative data, notwithstanding any crisis scenario. The main topics were growth and employment, drawing from the five priorities of the annual growth survey of the European Commission (fiscal consolidation, restoring normal lending to the economy, promoting growth and competitiveness, tackling unemployment, modernising public administration). Until the end of April, the EU member states will have to report to the European Commission how they want to convert the priorities into “national reform concepts”, outlined Dörr. The programmes and their analyses would be discussed at the Council meeting in June. Dörr emphasised the inclusion of “enhanced peer pressure“ into the Council Conclusions as an important sign for the determination of the Heads of State and Government to work towards more coordination.
Important topics of the European Council were the completion of the Single Market – especially in the digital and services sector. Therefore, the Commission will submit a notification in June. Furthermore, the necessary bureaucracy reduction in the EU and the new Energy Efficiency Directive played an important role. Along with that, it was planned to pass a successor programme to the one initiated under the German Council presidency in 2007, which targeted a bureaucracy reduction of 25% until 2012.
Subsequently, Matthias Petschke, Director of the Representation of the European Commission in Berlin, focused on the signature of the fiscal compact and the role of the European institutions in the realisation of the procedures determined in the treaty. Despite this intergovernmental method, they had found a way of cooperation, which includes the Commission and the Parliament. According to him, this was clearly shown by the frequent mentioning of the European institutions in the compact’s wording. Furthermore, Petschke used the words of the re-elected president of the European Council and new chair of the Euro Summits when he mentioned the many “S” by which the council meeting was characterised: European Semester, Serbia, Schengen, Syria, Southern Neighbourhood, the Signature of the Stability Treaty, and last but not least his own Second mandate.
The following discussion lead by Bernd Hüttemann, Secretary General of EM Germany, was circling around the nation-wide discussion on the “national reform programme” issued by the German Federal Government, the procedure of lawsuit as laid down in the fiscal pact as well as the current sentiments towards Greece. We will see if the word “crisis” will be mentioned after all now that Greece met the bailout conditions after a successful dept swap.