The debate about Europe's stability and growth pact is almost 10 years old and shows no sign of ending. I remember asking a senior German government official in the mid-1990s whether it was conceivable that Germany would ever pay a fine under the rules of the pact. He said it was not. Last year, Germany breached the deficit ceiling of 3 per cent of gross domestic product for the third year running. If you were to ask the same question to that official's successor, you would get the same unattributable answer: Germany will never pay a fine under any conceivable circumstances.

This is the backdrop against which one should judge last week's ill-tempered debate among Europe's finance ministers about whether and how to relax the pact. What the finance ministers were really debating was whether they should continue to break the rules or bring the rules in line with their current behaviour.