Speaking at the European Business Summit on 30 June, Van Rompuy stressed that the Task force was trying to define a system of "smart sanctions".
He explained that his team aimed at strengthening the Stability and Growth Pact, not only at the stage where a country exceeds the 3% threshold for public deficits, but also in a preventive phase.
The task force is not looking for "a nuclear bomb" with one big sanction, he assured but is rather looking at imposing "more automatic" sanctions in a gradual way, "without too much interference from political bodies".
He explained that the philosophy was "totally new", as the measures were not based on budgetary surveys, but on surveillance on macroeconomic level, and especially in the field of competitiveness.
At their June summit, EU leaders indeed gave "orientations" for developing a scoreboard to better monitor competitiveness developments and allow for an early detection of unsustainable or dangerous trends.
"We need indicators, we need a monitoring system, we need even a system of warnings, recommendations with possible sanctions, if countries don’t comply with what is needed for keeping their competitiveness," Van Rompuy told the audience.
He said that speaking about competitiveness, the issue was about reforms in the labour market, in product markets, in service markets. He added that countries had already engaged on debates on pension reforms and on reforms in the labour market, which was a positive sign.
Focusing not only on budgets, but on competitiveness would make it possible that the EU would have more convergence in economic policies inside the eurozone, Van Rompuy argued.
"In the eurozone, we saw it in the last months, the problems of one country are the problems of all. So each country has the responsibility for the general European instrument. We need surveillance mechanisms for budgets, and also for competitiveness," he said.
The Council President also said he hoped that the Task force would be able to report in October or even in September.
Asked what would be the reaction of markets on measures to be introduced to strengthen confidence, Van Rompuy stressed that the importance was not to publish the decisions, but for all to see that if there are problems, the Union would immediately act and that the appropriate measures would be taken.
"We recover confidence not by speeches, but by acts. […] We can always have doubts what markets will do, I never met them, the markets," he said amid laughs.
