Heads of state and government of 25 member states signed in Brussels, on 2 March 2012, the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union. The United Kingdom and the Czech Republic did not sign. A single original, equally authentic in 22 languages, is deposited with the General Secretariat of the Council. Wikipedia calls it the European Fiscal Compact; Title III is the fiscal chapter.

The treaty is intergovernmental, outside Union law, but applies without prejudice to the TFEU. Article 3 requires a balanced or surplus structural position, with a structural-deficit ceiling of 0.5 per cent of GDP (1 per cent if debt is significantly below 60 per cent), an automatic correction mechanism and independent domestic monitoring, preferably constitutional, within a year of entry into force. This is not a budget-circumvention or off-balance-sheet debt handbook.

Article 8 gives the Court of Justice jurisdiction over the transposition of Article 3(2). Article 12 organises euro-area summits. Article 14: ratifications with the depositary; entry into force on 1 January 2013 if twelve euro-area states have deposited instruments, or on the first day of the month following the twelfth such deposit, whichever is earlier. For states with a derogation, Titles III and IV apply upon euro adoption, unless they declare otherwise.

The text was closed politically on 30 January 2012, after the December 2011 European Council could not amend the EU treaties. Ireland put it to a referendum on 31 May 2012. Romania is a signatory; Romanian is an authentic language.

Article 16 required, within five years of entry into force, steps to incorporate the substance into the Union legal framework. Title III was taken up, at the level of principle, in the 2024 economic-governance reforms. This is not a handbook of current Stability and Growth Pact procedures.

The Czech Republic acceded later; Croatia after joining the EU. Consilium notes that Title III binds the euro area plus opt-in states (among them Romania and Denmark). The treaty is not published in the Official Journal; the working text is the Council's.

Cover: the Schuman roundabout in Brussels, the EU institutions district, not the plenipotentiaries' table. Wikimedia Commons, free licence.

Sources consulted: European Fiscal Compact; Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union.