The Dull Man theory of history

EVEN THE hardiest of EU veterans find the gatherings of its finance ministers tough-going. “Soul-crushing” is the verdict of one regular attendee. The EU’s bean-counters are not given their roles for their personalities. When EU leaders meet, there is a sense of history being made; when finance ministers gather, there is a sense of life ebbing away.

Yet it is the dull men and women of Europe’s finance ministries who hold the continent’s fate in their hands. A debate on reforms to the Stability and Growth Pact, which regulates government finances in the bloc, will set the path of the club for decades. It will reveal where power in the EU truly lies, how it will cope with the climate crisis and even whether the EU can retain any global clout. “The history of the world is but the biography of great men,” wrote Thomas Carlyle, a 19th-century historian. The future of the EU will be the biography of dull ones. Call it the Dull Man theory.

The crux of the debate is simple. As it stands, EU countries should have government debt no greater than 60% of GDP and a budget deficit no larger than 3% of it. If breached, a government must come up with a plan to return to fiscal sobriety. When the principles were first outlined in the 1990s, this seemed a worthy goal. In 2021 it is a bizarre joke. The average debt to GDP in the euro area...