The European Council is meeting today in Brussels to decide on amendments to the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU), namely for a permanent mechanism to safeguard the financial stability of the euro area proposed by France and Germany in last October.

While the EU leadership has been rejecting for years the calls of the European Left to amend the reactionary provisions of the functioning of the Eurozone, the European Council under the pressure from international markets has decided to amend the TFEU using a fast track procedure.

The new mechanism is supposed to replace the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM), which will remain in force until June 2013. In its place, there will be the activation of the permanent mechanism to “rescue” the stability of the euro area when needed, requiring mutual agreement of the euro area member states.

In practice, a mere sentence will be added to Article 136 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union: "The member states whose currency is the euro may establish a stability mechanism to safeguard the stability of the euro area as a whole. The granting of financial assistance under the mechanism will be made subject to strict conditionality."

The European Left Party disagrees with this procedure and states that the peoples of the Member States of the EU must express their will via referendums concerning the amendments to the TFEU and demand that the amendments to the TFEU should comprise inter alia:

1. The ECB must act as the lender of last resort including a right to issue money and the right to purchase state bonds directly from the member states of the EU;

2. The EU must have the right to issue Eurobonds that will facilitate borrowing by EU member states on low interest rates;

3. Activation of the solidarity clause of Article 122 par. 2 TFEU for the establishment of a European Fund for Social Solidarity and Development;

4. Abolishing the no bail out clause of Article 125 TFEU;

5. Replacement of the Stability Pact with a Pact for Employment and Environmental Protection;

6. Taxation of all speculative transactions in EU, in order to fund the above mentioned European Fund for Social Solidarity;

7. The member states of the EU must have the right to erase or cancel unilaterally a great part of their sovereign debt, in order to develop policies that will enhance the structural reconstruction of their economies.

The European Council will put a second issue to be discussed on the table by leaders – the decision on how the new mechanism will be generated and how it will be financed, passing by an intervention of the financial markets, etc. However, an agreement is not expected until April, with a possible adoption in June.