We were 17, all journalists from eurozone countries, taken for a workshop in Brussels and Luxembourg last week by the European Journalists Centre.

In Luxembourg we waited and waited for the conclusion of the Ecofin meeting. At least I got the credit for being the first to use the Malta briefing room that has always been there, ready to be used, but was never used before.

Then we were told that the press conference at the end of Ecofin was about to begin. Seconds later, we were told it had been cancelled and would take place after dinner. Then, when it finally took place, one commissioner, Olli Rehn, had left for Brussels.

We found out what happened the next day at the Commission’s midday briefing when the journalists attacked Rehn’s spokesman, Amadeu Altafaj Tardio, for misleading them.

He said his commissioner had waited ‘for hours’ for a room to become available for the press conference, but none was. Then, as he left to go to another appointment in Brussels, two hours away, journalists from the Financial Times asked him some questions by e-mail and he replied to them.

The next day, it seemed he had preferred talking to the FT than addressing the press conference.

It is of such things that the top levels of which Europe are made.

I can summarise the upshot of the workshop in simple points:

- No one had any idea what was going to happen

- We heard a lot of wish lists and personal or collective hobbyhorses

- And at the heart of Europe there is ongoing a huge tussle for the control of the union and that, while not exactly causing the crisis, is incredibly hindering the solution to it. Put simply, it is a tussle between the Commission, which wants to do things one way, and the governments of Europe that want to do things in a different way.

First, a spot of deconstruction.

Hans Martens, CEO of the European Policy Centre, showed us how, for all the anti-euro sentiment one reads in the British press, the situation in Britain is far worse than it is in the eurozone.

The crisis in Greece represents a crisis of a country that is not even three per cent of the entire eurozone GDP.

But while the Greek public finance imbalance, at just under eight per cent, is huge, the UK’s is over eight per cent and the United States’ one is 10 per cent.

The EU current account was almost always (except for two periods in 2000-2001 and from 2008 to 2011) in the positive area, the US current account, from 1995 to this year was always negative.

And both the euro’s and UK’s public debt levels, at just under 100 per cent, are below the US one, which at over 100 per cent is above them, but below those of Italy and Greece.

Finally, the public budget deficit of the eurozone at some -4 per cent this year, is by far above that of the UK at -8 per cent and of the US at -10 per cent.

So why do we all seem to hear about the euro and never about the Sterling? Or the Dollar? That may be because almighty credit rating agencies are all based in the English-speaking world and of the most credited financial press, most of which is in the English language as well.

But it was the rating agencies that kept giving Lehman Brothers an AAA rating until the very eve of its collapse. And who have huge conflict of interest issues when they act as consultants. There is, for instance, a Chinese rating agency which is fairer but which never seems to get mentioned.

We heard more presentations after that, but it was in late evening when we got a clue to what is really taking place in the EU.

On the one hand, we have the member governments making most of the moves and news. We can call this the inter-governmental approach.

That merits some background explanation. The current crisis saw its beginning when both France and Germany went beyond the Maastricht rules and other countries, such as Greece, followed them and went far beyond them.

Since then, the leaders have held meeting after meeting to try and stem the Greek problem.

So last year we had the first Greek bailout, then it was found to be just not enough and the second level, the EFSF (European Financial Stability pact) was hurriedly created on 21 July but is still unratified by two member Parliaments – ours and that of Slovakia.

Since this is an inter-governmental approach, it is all based on unanimity. Hence, if Slovakia’s Parliament, or Malta’s, in that unlikely case, does not ratify the deal on Tuesday, the euro will have problems.

Even so, it is already clear that even the EFSF’s €400 billion will not be enough to stem the crisis and fight off the markets. While Germany keeps insisting it will not agree to any talk of enlarging this bailout fund to the Three Trillion that keeps getting mentioned as being hopefully enough in case there is a run by the markets on Italy or Spain, other nimble minds keep coming up with various formulas through which, without any difficult treaty change, the present EFSF kitty can be stretched and expanded in very inventive ways.

That, however, is the inter-governmental approach.

The Commission, aided and abetted by the European Parliament is taking a very different approach. That was explained to us by Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo y Marfil, an EPP MEP, who is the vice-chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.

The previous day, the EP negotiators had reached a deal with the Polish presidency on the economic governance ‘six-pack’.

The deal overcomes the qualms between the Council and the EP about introducing procedures that will allow the Commission to take action when dealing with Member States with unsustainable budgetary and macro-economic policies.

I give here my interpretation, so that none of those who spoke to us can be held to a view expressed here. I perceive the Commission as claiming, in not so many words, that the current mess is the result of member states acting for their own particular interest while being subject all the time to the unanimity rule, while the Commission, being beyond that, would have been stricter on defaulting member states.

If anyone thinks the above is a rule for a governance of Europe that is beyond popular votes and elections, so be it. For all the talk about votes and elections is bringing Europe more to the brink of handing over power to fringe xenophobic and far-right parties.

The ‘six-pack’ proposal, which will become law in the new year, draws certain distinctions between ‘healthy’ and unhealthy’ expenditure, which should go beyond the current insistence on austerity measures and contribute to competitiveness and economic growth. It will also considerably improve transparency and accountability in eurozone decision-making,

That, the Spanish MEP told us, is one pillar of the deal. Another pillar would consist of a second Marshall Plan for Europe to save not just the banks but also the economies and to rekindle economic growth.

For banks, one idea would be to split the banks in trouble in two parts, the good bank and the bad bank, with a ‘blue bond’ going to help the good banks and a ‘red bond’ to help those in trouble. While the latter would undoubtedly find difficulty in raising finance, there should not be any such difficulty with the ‘blue bond’.

There are however some proposals that might impact on our small, local, open economy.

One such proposal is for a tax on financial transactions, which is aimed at giving the Commission some firepower, some own resources. Part of the VAT takes already go to the EU, but this would be a direct Europe tax, which, it was said, will have very little impact on people in their daily lives.

There would be far stricter enforcement on what each country promised to do as part of the Lisbon targets that have never been reached by most countries.

Thirdly, there would be a move to harmonise tax levels across Europe and to harmonise VAT levels as well.

Immediately, one sees Malta seriously objecting to these proposals but at this point I am not so sure our stand we always took, that this was a matter for unanimity and since we and the Brits objected it would not be implemented, will still be valid. As for tax harmonization, wait for the screams coming out of Ireland which has jealously guarded that even when it was asking to be bailed out.

There is no silver bullet, we were repeatedly told and we must look forward to at least two more turbulent years. Even so, and despite most sides, as I said, hyperventilating on their own hobbyhorses, some nimble minds are hard at work to prevent the world from caving in on us. Pity they were nowhere when the skies began to crumble.

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