Mr Romano Prodi has certainly raised the hares with his remark that the three per cent fiscal guidelines for the euro are "a stupid instrument, like all decisions which are rigid." The president of the European Commission has defended his view in subsequent interviews.
In response there has been outrage in the European Parliament, anger among centre-right political leaders and a stoic reiteration of existing policy by Mr Pedro Solbes, Mr Prodi's colleague in the Commission with responsibility for the Stability and Growth Pact.
Many suspect Mr Prodi spoke under pressure from France, Germany and Italy, three large States whose budgets have been under severe strain in meeting the agreed criteria during a period of sluggish growth. If they were to breach them unilaterally the euro's credibility would be threatened. Already it has been agreed that planned budgetary balances will not be achieved until 2006 at the earliest.
So there is no doubt the pact is under strain and some danger that it could be loosened too much,according to Mr Prodi's critics, among them representatives of the smaller States with a particular interest in stability. His rejoinder is that an ineffective system suits no member-State. Rigid rules which made sense during the transition to the single currency in the 1990s ( a period of relatively healthy growth) are inappropriate now that growth is slower and inflation less problematic.
Mr Prodi's political motivation is clearly to open up the question of changing the rules and prompt a debate on them. He has been prepared to do so because of his concern that the euro's governance system needs better targets and guidelines, including more focused political ones from the Ecofin Council and the European Parliament which take more account of the economic cycle. It is surely better to have such a debate now rather than see the rules broken incrementally and gradually, culminating in a crisis.
There is room to consider several dimensions of change. The European Central Bank has a very narrow mandate to control inflation, compared with the United States Federal Reserve, which oversees what is after all a smaller continental economy than Europe's. Growth, employment, and the economic cycle, should all be taken into account by the ECB. There should be more scope for political guidance on these factors, without compromising the bank's independence. Socially necessary investment projects approved by the European Commission could be excluded from the fiscal rules. And more account could be taken of the level of public debt, so that States with lower proportions in relation to gross domestic product (such as Ireland or Germany) would have more room to manoeuvre than Italy, with nearly twice their amount of debt.
This is a hazardous agenda, but a necessary one. Mr Prodi should be commended for opening it up.