Finland sticks to consensus demand at euro summit

Qualified majority decision-making could violate constitution

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The Grand Committee of the Finnish Parliament emphasised on Thursday that Finland cannot accept “significant changes” in the consensus rules of the European Stability Mechanism.
      The committee said that the implementation of qualified majority voting cannot be justified on the basis of any emergency, because doing so would establish the new procedure as the rule.
      The Grand Committee came to its conclusions after consulting with the Constitutional Law Committee.
     
According to the Constitutional Law Committee the qualified majority rule in the draft ESM treaty would affect Finnish self-determination and the power of Parliament to decide on the country’s budget, and as such would violate the Finnish constitution.
      In the draft, decisions on supporting a country would require an 85 per cent qualified majority. This could mean that in an emergency situation, other EU countries could decide to increase Finnish liability in the ESM from the present initial input of EUR 1.4 billion.
      It would also mean that three large countries, Germany, France and Italy, would retain their veto.
     
“The agreement would not give a veto to other countries, which goes against the principle of equality for member states”, said Grand Committee chairwoman Miapetra Kumpula-Natri (SDP).
      “The requirement of consensus in economically significant decisions was a prerequisite for the establishment of the ESM.”
     
The Constitutional Law Committee feels that before Finland can approve of the idea of replacing consensus with qualified majority voting, the move would have to be passed by a two-thirds majority in the Finnish Parliament – at least 134 votes.
      This means that the opposition parties, the True Finns and the Centre Party, would be able to prevent the passage of the measure. However, it might never come before Parliament, if Finland sticks to its point of view in Brussels and adheres to its demands for consensus.
      Minister of Finance Jutta Urpilainen (SDP) said that Finland has no intention to compromise on its insistence that the consensus principle be retained.
     
However, Finland has not always been insistent on consensus in all EU decision-making.
      “Finland has supported shifting over to qualified majority decisions and the securing of the EU’s ability to function”, says Juha Jokela, director of the EU research programme of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. The consensus requirement has been seen as especially difficult now that the EU has 27 member states.
      Jokela also notes that it is not unheard of for Finland to make international commitments, effectively giving others decision-making power over its money. One example is Finland’s involvement with the International Monetary Fund.

More on this subject:
 ESM draft: no upper limit for Finnish financial liability

Previously in HS International Edition:
  What will happen to the euro? (2.12.2011)

Links:
  European Stability Mechanism (Wikipedia)

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