Politics & Power Quote by Laurent Fabius

Fabius is doing the politician’s tightrope walk: sounding pro-European while indicting the specific kind of Europe that turns political choice into a spreadsheet constraint. The phrase “sets in stone” is the tell. It’s not a neutral description of constitutional design; it’s an accusation that a living political project is being fossilized into doctrine. By naming the Stability Pact, he pins the problem on Europe’s post-Maastricht moral economy: fiscal discipline treated not as a tool but as a virtue that outranks jobs, investment, and, crucially, democratic discretion.

The real target is the constitutionalization of austerity. When rules are elevated to quasi-sacred status, governments can no longer argue about priorities; they can only argue about compliance. That’s why “risks preventing” matters: it’s cautious enough to remain respectable in Brussels, but pointed enough to signal a fear of institutional lock-in. Growth policy becomes less a debate than a prohibited act, especially for member states already squeezed by deficit limits and market pressure.

The closing line - “we are not able to do things at the European or the national level” - is a compact diagnosis of a legitimacy trap. Europe is too constrained to act as a macroeconomic state, while nation-states are too constrained to act as sovereign economic managers. The subtext is democratic: if neither level can deliver, voters will eventually conclude the system is designed to refuse them. Fabius is warning that constitutional architecture can quietly manufacture political helplessness - and then act surprised when resentment fills the vacuum.