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Brussels - Three years ago, hardening eurozone fiscal rules was all the rage. Today, the game is how to fully use their "flexibility".
The change shows how far the eurozone has travelled from trying to win back the confidence of investors at the peak of the sovereign debt crisis to winning back voters as radical parties rise amid record unemployment and economic stagnation.
Interpreting how much wiggle room the EU treaties offer has become a new source of contention among governments, a North-South divide pitting Italy and France against Germany that poses its own risks to the stability of the 15-year-old currency.
Adding spice to the argument, France's former finance minister will, if accepted this week by the European Parliament, become the EU's chief policeman on budget discipline as commissioner for economic affairs. Pierre Moscovici has assured Germans he will not do his own country's bidding from Brussels.
Nonetheless, Moscovici's Socialist ally, President Francois Hollande, and Italy's centre-left premier, Matteo Renzi, are leading demands for more room for manoeuvre because both face low economic growth, low inflation, high public debt and political resistance to structural reforms.
Some extra government spending that would not get them into trouble for missing debt or deficit targets set by the rules would be the easiest way to stimulate growth, they argue.
But conservative German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her allies stress that breaking or even bending the newly hardened EU budget rules would undermine confidence in them and sow the seeds for the next crisis in a few years' time.
Many investors, though keen to see economic growth, agree.
"Breaching the rules would not be penalised by markets immediately, but it would build a base for disaster in the future," said Carsten Brzeski, economist at ING bank in Germany.
"It would show that the eurozone has not learned the lessons of 2003-2004," he said.
At that time, France and Germany teamed up against the European Commission to block tougher disciplinary action against themselves for running excessive budget deficits - above the EU limit of 3% of Gross Domestic Product.
Even though the Commission, the guardian of EU laws, eventually won the case in Europe's highest court, the damage to the credibility of the rules was done and more "flexibility" was introduced into them in 2005.
Many policy-makers believe that was one of the causes of the sovereign debt crisis that engulfed the eurozone in 2010.
What fexibility is there?
For a country with a budget gap of more than 3% of GDP, like France, there seems very little leeway in the rules.
That state has to agree with EU finance ministers on an annual path of deficit reduction, both for the nominal and the structural shortfall, and has to follow that prescribed path.
If assumptions used to set the deficit reduction path prove inaccurate, for instance growth is much slower than expected, the country can expect more time to reduce its nominal deficit providing it cut the structural gap - the part not dependent on the business cycle - by the required amount.
Reducing the structural deficit almost invariably involves reforms such as liberalising the labour market and overhauling the justice system, education or healthcare. Special attention is given to pension reforms on a continent where an ageing population is straining arrangements made last century.
The EU budget rules also say a country can have more time to bring its deficit back into line if there is a severe economic downturn in the eurozone or the European Union as a whole.
Money spent on "fostering international solidarity" and "achieving the policy goals of the Union", as well as debt incurred to help bail out another eurozone country can also be mitigating factors.
More options
Governments which have managed to reduce their deficit below 3% of GDP, like Italy, have more room for manoeuvre.
Under the new rules, once they are below 3%, eurozone governments must strive towards a budget close to balance or in surplus in structural terms, improving the balance by at least 0.5% of GDP a year.
They also have to reduce public debt.
But they can delay reaching balanced budgets if they invest, and the Commission takes into account the size of public investment relative to the deficit.
In EU jargon this is called the investment clause, but it is open only to those who have economic growth well below potential, do not breach the 3% deficit limit and respect the rule to reduce debt every year.
The investment also has to be in projects co-financed by the EU under regional development policies for poorer regions, European networks, or the connecting Europe facility - notably building transport, energy or telecommunications links - with verifiable and positive long-term budget effects.
Because Italy's debt is rising, rather than falling, it could not make use of that investment clause last year when the EU declared its deficit was no longer excessive.
This option would be closed to France, because it fails on a greater number of criteria. EU officials said the investment clause will very likely not be applied now because Europe is no longer in recession.
Countries like Italy can also postpone balancing their books through major structural reforms that have "direct long-term positive budgetary effects, including by raising potential sustainable growth, and therefore a verifiable impact on the long-term sustainability of public finances".
Italy's room could be limited, however, because the reforms may not raise the deficit too close to the 3% ceiling - the rules say "an appropriate safety margin" must be preserved.
Another important caveat is that the reforms have to be not only planned, but actually implemented.
The difficulty with the structural reform option is that it discounts economic benefits that accrue only after several years, once the change bears fruit.
It is hard to quantify the impact of a structural reform on growth, especially in the longer term, so the leeway granted in deficit reduction is open to political discretion.
That will ensure plenty of attention on Moscovici, whose office will be responsible for reviewing countries' efforts to meet EU rules - and handing out potential fines worth billions.
To ensure Moscovici doesn't grant too much flexibility, his rulings on national budgets will have to be signed off by Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis, a fiscal hawk who implemented tough austerity measures as Latvia's prime minister.
