Reforms in EU do not require treaty change: Commission

(BRUSSELS) - The European Commission said on Tuesday it saw no need for change to European Union treaties to instigate closer cross-border economic governance.

Commission spokesman Olivier Bailly spelled out the EU executive's belief that the current Lisbon Treaty is sufficient to take the steps seen as necessary among the leading EU figures.

"The current treaties offer already the possibility to deepen the economic integration and strengthen the economic coordination between member states," Bailly said.

He spoke a day after a string of leading figures including star economist Nouriel Roubini argued that the EU must move rapidly towards "political union," or face "break-up."

Germany's finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble indicated that treaty change could come about further down the line -- to create the sort of "United States of Europe" envisaged by ex-German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Bailly stressed that existing agreements and negotiations would suffice once implemented.

He said that "the most pressing issue is to implement the agreement of 21 July," when a special eurozone summit agreed to work more closely to harmonise economic policymaking.

The summit asked leading EU and eurozone officials to draw up areas for further tightening over the "coming weeks."

Bailly said that the second priority was the adoption of a package of laws to help police a range of joint economic targets which have been under negotiation for the last year.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for additional tweaks to the six-point package after a head-to-head in Paris last month.

"We believe that with that and the other possibilities the treaty already provides, we have enough to strengthen economic integration," Bailly underlined.

"Should the member states decide that further economic integration is necessary, it will be up to them to decide to open the treaty again," he added, deeming that a "purely hypothetical" scenario.