… a crucial instrument to guarantee a fair contribution from the financial sector to the cost of the financial crisis.

The initiative is not unprecedented. The European Commission already proposed a duty on transactions involving shares, derivatives and other financial products last September, which met with immediate opposition from the United Kingdom and Sweden. This time around, the ministers point out that they are willing to seek “alternatives” if a solution has not been planned within the next six months – a remark, which SZ believes is evidence of an important development "if you read between the lines” –

The nine signatories send a very clear message: we can go it alone. [According to the provisions of EU treaties] states can enter into agreement for reinforced cooperation if they come together in a group of no less than nine. That is why this short letter reads almost like a heavy-handed threat to colleagues who have yet to make up their minds. All those concerned have been warned: the overwhelming likelihood is that the tax will be introduced.

Finally the daily notes that the letter will also have an internal impact on signatory countries, notably France and Germany: it will enable Nicolas Sarkozy to aspire to more votes in presidential elections in April and May, and give Angela Merkel something to offer the Geman opposition, which made the introduction of a Tobin tax a condition for its endorsement of the fiscal compact.

The paper highlights instead the 17% obtained by the centrist candidate, Paavo Väyrynen, an early opponent of the single currency. Väyrynen, who "heard the criticism regarding the euro and managed to make good use of it," campaigned by attacking the social democrat candidate, Paavo Lipponen, who finished 10 points behind Väyrynen. This gap is interpreted by Helsingin Sanomat as a sign of strong Eurosceptic sentiment in Finland.

Helsingin Sanomat also notes that the new president, Sauli Niinistö, is "much more guarded than the rest of his party on the issue of providing financial support to eurozone countries in crisis," and this could complicate future negotiations within the EU.

Or perhaps there is. There’s the European Commission, guardian of the treaties and of the “economic government” of the EU, as its President, Jose Manuel Barroso, recently repeated. But when it comes to the eurozone, it’s the Eurogroup – the Ministers of Economy, i.e. national governments – that has taken over. Again, therefore, Paris and Berlin.

The recent appointment of European Council President Herman Van Rompuy as “Mr. Euro”, with the blessing of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, strengthens the role of member states in the economic governance of “Euroland”, with Germany and France in the lead.

The catch is that this set-up isn’t based on any agreement and that the decisions taken by “Merkozy” seem increasingly to be evading any debate, even within the eurozone itself. Indeed, no other country is able to influence the discussions or to act as counterweight to a steamroller increasingly unencumbered by courtesies when addressing one’s peers, as shown by the angry and hostile tone in which the proposed referendum in Greece was greeted by “Merkozy”.

Among the other “big” countries, Italy, the third-largest economy in the eurozone, finds itself in the hot seat because of the precariousness of its government and its public finances. Meanwhile Spain, in the middle of an election campaign, is not out of the rut yet. 

Hammered by the debt crisis, they are, like Portugal and Ireland, well distant from the “triple A” of the rating agencies that seems to confer supernatural powers on countries that still have it. Which, incidentally, explains why the French president is obsessed with keeping his country in the most prized circle of the moment. In the eurozone, the other members of this triple-A club – Austria, Finland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands – either pack a light punch or are aligned with the Franco-German duo.

While Merkel and Sarkozy may be able to avoid the most threatening whirlpools, however, they seem to have no clear idea of where they want to steer the good ship Euro – and they have no mandate for it either. This lack of clarity and legitimacy weighs heavily over the uncharted course of the crisis and gives the impression that they’re navigating by sight. Steering through the storm, we’re not willing to hand the helm over unless those who take it can guide the ship and crew safely to harbour.

Translated from the French by Anton Baer

However, the experience of previous agreements hammered out after difficult negotiations should encourage us to hedge our bets. Markets move in mysterious ways, and there is a risk that this latest summit will have been for nothing. With this in mind, it is still too early to draw any conclusions as to its final outcome.

However, in a context where the response of European leaders was informed by the fact that the fate of the EU was at stake, a quick look at the European political landscape in the wake of the October 23 and 26 summits should be sufficient to tell us that the political crisis, which was obscured by the financial crisis, is only beginning.

As many commentators have noted, we are now embarked on a path towards the greater integration of the Eurozone, and this is a move which will generate a lot of uncertainty.

The highly publicised discussions between Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have demonstrated that the Paris-Berlin axis is once again the main motor of Europe. But we are no longer in a Europe with just six or 12 member states, and this motor will have less horsepower in the wake of successive EU enlargements and the creation of powerful internal organisations like the European Central Bank.

The spat between Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron, and the Commons debate on a UK referendum to decide on Britain’s membership of the EU are evidence that London is also seeking to redefine its role in what is now a shifting architecture. "Merkozy" will be uneager to offer concessions to the British, who have exerted a long-standing influence on the liberal development of the European Commission, without assuming all the political responsibilities that this would imply.

However, the UK is not the only country to wonder about its role in Europe. The nine other EU members which are not in the euro, and in particular Poland and Sweden, are already grumbling about the inception of what will become a two-speed Europe. The Schengen Area and initiatives for European defence have already set a precedent for EU initiatives with a variable geometry. But they do not involve such a developed level of governance as the one implied by the control of national budgets and the appointment of a European minister of finance.

And here, we are touching on the main point about the instability to come: the economic government that Berlin and Paris are aiming to establish, with support from the Netherlands and Finland, will affect the sovereignty of states and raise the question of democratic control – an issue raised by sociologist Jürgen Habermas in a forthcoming essay from which Presseurop has published a number of extracts.

From this point of view, the EU has now embarked on a dangerous transition, in which its leaders will have to demonstrate their political effectiveness and at the same time keep an eye on the practicalities of democracy: especially when you consider that the ratification process for the 21 July agreement has already shown that national parliaments are very slow when they are required to respond to financial markets. 

Worse still, as Timothy Garton Ash pointed out this week in his analysis of the debates in the UK and German parliaments, national democracies are expressing conflicting demands that have caused the EU to stall. 

But given that no one is ready to establish a European democracy based on a parliament that is elected from transnational lists which take up a position on transnational debates, decisions will continue to be taken by political leaders who meet behind closed doors, and they will continue to be approved by parliaments that have been first and foremost elected to deal with national issues. The euro may be saved,  but the EU is still not out of the woods.

Translated from the French by Mark McGovern

For its part, Swedish language daily Hufvudstadsbladet remarks that the accord is “a perfect example of economic engineering” that features stiff conditions for Finland, which will deter other countries from backing out of bailout plans in the Eurozone.

“Steve Jobs has left us without jobs”, leads the Bucharest daily on its front page next to a photo of the boss of Apple. Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, concurs: “The fundamental reason is the change in the market – people want smart phones now, not the conventional phones like those assembled near Cluj.” Nokia, Romania’s second largest exporter after the automaker Dacia, came to Romania three years ago from Germany, where it had just closed a plant in Bochum. Moving on, then and now, is the sign of the times.

Beyond the national perspective, however, everything today indicates that Europe has become a kind of labyrinth in which no one recognises his own borders. The external frontiers, the Schengen area, pressed hard on their Greek or Italian flanks, are reinforced on one side with barbed wire (between Greece and Turkey) or with increased sea patrols (in the Mediterranean) – all without any guidelines having been drawn up at European level.

Internal borders, which theoretically are now largely symbolic administrative lines, are in turn subject to manoeuvring that undermines the very principle of free movement throughout the area. Denmark has restored its border controls, ostensibly to fight cross-border crime, and France has done the same to prevent Tunisians from crossing over from Italy. Finally, other borders, these ones political, forced up by domestic issues, are popping up where they were not necessarily expected: in the Netherlands, in Finland and in Denmark, pushed for by Geert Wilders and his party, by the "True Finns", and by the Danish People's Party.  

“I blame Europe and Italy for being asleep, for not being aware of the nationalist and centrifugal forces that are tugging it apart. We have not remembered the lesson from the Balkans: it's enough simply to identify an enemy of the people for a people short of reference points to take it on as truth,” writes the Italian Paolo Rumiz in his book On the Frontiers of Europe (ed. Hoebeke, 2011). He might have added that it risks abandoning part of its soul to wander between these more or less shifting borders, and lose itself. 

In the Netherlands several MPs have already asked the finance minister to take action. De Volkskrant says it is unclear what Greece could offer as collateral to Finland. Probably not islands or railroads: more likely a cash payment of €0.5bn-1bn. Because Greece has no money of its own, the paper fears that the deposit will have to come from the European fund.

Despite a breakthrough in the April 17 legislative elections, the True Finns Party will remain in opposition. The populist party withdrew from the talks due to serious disagreements over European policy. The populist True Finns scored electoral victories by criticising the bailout packages for Greece and Portugal. Although Europhile in nature, the new coalition government intends to adopt a firm view on this issue.

On April 17, nearly 20 percent of Finns voted for a eurosceptic party opposed to financial support for Eurozone countries in difficulty. A year before the presidential election in France, the leader of the National Front, Marine Le Pen, has every chance of making it through to the second round. Her programme: dumping the euro, protectionism and closing the borders. In the Netherlands, under pressure from the popular Geert Wilders, the government is going after tougher conditions for residency for foreigners, including nationals of the European Union. And it is partly to limit electoral damage that Angela Merkel has tightened up the conditions for German participation in stabilising the euro zone.

For the last fifteen or twenty years the anti-Europeans have been on the margins and extremist parties were a problem primarily within national borders; even the crisis caused by the Jörg Haider party taking seats in Austria’s government had few ripples across Europe. But today, in contending for power or as players that cannot be shut out from national governments, these groups, which are attracting more and more voters, are weighing heavily on the overall functioning of the European Union.

Not federal enough to act in a coordinated manner or to remain independent of the political calculations of member states, and yet too federal to build close links to citizens, the EU finds itself in an unprecedented bind: the political trend that is developing flies in the face of what, ever since the Second World War, it has considered its values ​​– and what seemed to be the inevitable course of history. For our national and European leaders, the challenge is an immense one.