The stability pact is a rule of budget discipline which recommends relinquishing contra-cyclical activism in favour of automatic stabilisers in order to regulate the economic cycle. This article seeks to describe the budget rules followed by European governments since 1970 in order to test the reliability of the stability pact approach. The results show that the primary balance becomes more inert and has a greater corrective effect on debt trends from 1992. Debt correction seems to be attributable to discretionary policies. Disciplined budget rules nevertheless display a certain cyclical assymmetry: discretionary policy seems to be pro-cyclical during slowdowns and acyclical during recoveries. Automatic stabilisers are also less extensive during economic downturns.