The "pact for competitiveness" (now the "pact for the euro") that Mrs Merkel and France's Nicolas Sarkozy are promoting, for instance, includes the idea of harmonising corporate-tax bases, surely a step towards harmonised tax rates.
ICDDR,B management reported that the reduction in reporting from quarterly to annual, and a single rather than multiple-reporting format for the core donors had reduced transaction costs, and led to further progress towards harmonised and convergent management and funding processes.
Harmonising towards high taxes would not only discourage people from taking up the habit and help to pay for anti-smoking initiatives, public-health experts argue, but also reduce the incentive to smuggle cigarettes from low-tax to high-tax regimes.
This paper draws on the international experience in energy modelling and tracks recent progress that has been made towards a harmonised European framework for verification of savings.
Many would worry that such a scheme would be a step towards the French Socialists' long-held dream of harmonising minimum wages and welfare standards across the EU.
In "harmonising" business regulation, the EU seems set on a path of imposing the most stringent rules on all countries, rather than seeking the minimum level of regulation acceptable to all, or even moving towards the average.
Work has begun on harmonising statistics.
Diplomats got to work on harmonising trade rules.
