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In December 2017, the European Commission proposed a Council Regulation to replace the ESM by a European Monetary Fund (EMF). Its main purpose is to insert this new organ within the Union’s institutional system, with limited changes to the ESM framework. In December 2018, the Eurogroup, with the approval of the Euro Summit, took up some elements of the Commission’s proposal in order to prepare amendments to the ESM treaty. The use of ESM funds is progressively becoming clearer and can improve the material coherence of the Union’s policies, in particular with regard to the programmes’ conditionality and to the creation of a backstop to the Single Resolution Fund. On the other hand, at the institutional level, the legal basis of the future EMF, its impact on the institutional balance and its implications for relations between Member States raise several questions. Unsurprisingly, the Eurogroup does not intend to adopt any major changes on these issues, which are nonetheless to be borne in mind in debates on Eurozone governance in the years to come.

En décembre 2017, la Commission européenne a proposé de transformer le Mécanisme européen de stabilité (MES) en Fonds monétaire européen (FME). Cet article revient brièvement sur la genèse du MES et sur ses limites, avant d’aborder les avantages et les inconvénients principaux du projet de FME.