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  3. Never has a straitjacket seemed so ill-fitting or so insecure. The Euro area

Never has a straitjacket seemed so ill-fitting or so insecure. The Euro area

游客2025-04-26  11
问题     Never has a straitjacket seemed so ill-fitting or so insecure. The Euro area’s "stability and growth pact" was supposed to stop irresponsible member states running excessive budget deficits, defined as 3% of GDP or more. Chief among the restraints was the threat of large fines if member governments breached the limit for three years in a row. For some time now, no one has seriously believed those restraints would hold. In the early hours of Tuesday November 25th, the Euro’s fiscal straitjacket finally came apart at the seams.
    The pact’s fate was sealed over an extended dinner meeting of the Euro area’s 12 finance ministers. They chewed over the sorry fiscal record of the Euro’s two largest members, France and Germany. Both governments ran deficits of more than 3% of GDP last year and will do so again this year. Both expect to breach the limit for the third time in 2004. Earlier this year the European Commission, which polices the pact, agreed to give both countries an extra year, until 2005, to bring their deficits back into line. But it also instructed them to revisit their budget plans for 2004 and make extra cuts. France was asked to cut its underlying, cyclically adjusted deficit by a full 1% of GDP, Germany by 1.8%. Both resisted.
    Under the pact’s hales, the commission’s prescriptions have no force until formally endorsed in a vote by the Euro area’s finance ministers, known as the "Eurogroup". And the votes were simply not there. Instead, the Eurogroup agreed on a set of proposals of its own, drawn up by the Italian finance minister, Giulio Tremonti. France will cut its structural deficit by 1.8% of GDP next year, Germany by 0. 6%. In 2005, both will bring their deficits below 3%, economic growth permitting. Nothing will enforce or guarantee this agreement except France and Germany’s word. The European Central Bank (ECB) was alarmed at this outcome, the commission was dismayed, and the smaller Euro-area countries who opposed the deal were apoplectic: treaty law was giving way to the "Franco-German steamroller", as Le Figaro, a French newspaper, put it.
    This anger will sour European politics and may spill over into negotiations on a proposed EU constitution. Having thrown their weight around this week, France and Germany may find other smaller members more reluctant than ever to give ground in the negotiations on the document. The EU’s midsized countries also hope to capitalize on this ressentiment. Spain opposes the draft constitution because it will give it substantially less voting weight than it currently enjoys. It sided against France and Germany on Tuesday, and will point to their fiscal transgressions to show that the EU’s big countries do not deserve the extra power the proposed constitution will give them. [br] The fate of the Eurogroup’s prescriptions is manifested in the fact that France and Germany______
选项 A、refuse to follow its instructions.
B、side against smaller countries.
C、readdress their budget deficits.
D、bring their deficits back into line.
答案 A
解析 题干问：“欧盟规定的命运在事实中表现出来，这一事实是法国和德国……”。正确选项为A“拒绝遵从它的规定”，此题定位于第2自然段，且第3自然段也讲到了这一点。而选项B“反对一些小国家”，选项C“重新考虑它们的财政赤字”和选项D“将财政赤字降到限额内”都不符合题干的要求。
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