Tag: stability and growth pact

An EU summit opening in Brussels today (14 March) is expected to see leaders offer conflicting views on the economy, with France’s Socialist President François Hollande leading calls for Europe to loosen the austerity policies adopted in response to the eurozone debt crisis. Hollande will find an unexpected ally in UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who also backs a more “flexible” approach to debt policing.

The proposed fiscal compact treaty is redundant as it presents little improvement over the existing EU rules and does not address the financial markets' actual concerns over short and medium-term growth, argues Massimiliano Marcellino.

Preparations should be made for European treaty change according to the conclusions from today's (23 October) EU summit, following a lengthy dispute over the relative powers of the eurozone and wider EU 27 countries.

With the euro debt debacle focusing lawmakers' minds, the European Parliament passed a series of six budget laws intended to make it harder for eurozone countries to ignore EU warnings, giving more powers to Brussels in policing debt.

Progress on draft EU rules to vet countries' debts is slow to come as France and the European Parliament are still embroiled in a tug of war over how much say the European Commission should have on countries' wayward budgets, according to EU sources. 

EU finance ministers agreed yesterday (21 March) to boost a permanent stability fund, which from mid-2013 will hold €700 billion to shield eurozone countries from future debt crises.

Germany's proposal for a 'competitiveness pact' opens a unique opportunity to forge a real economic, not just monetary union, says Maria João Rodrigues, an economic policy professor and special advisor to the EU institutions. But she also warns about risks of serious divisions which have started to emerge.

Eurozone finance ministers discussed on Monday (17 January) having more money in their rescue fund and cheaper emergency loans as part of a package of measures to end the sovereign debt crisis. But they made no firm decisions.

The euro zone is facing a systemic crisis, but exit or default are not solutions and a new compromise is needed between member states and financial investors, writes Maria João Rodrigues, professor of European Economic Policies at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and a policy advisor to the EU institutions.

Although EU governments do bear responsibility for their current debt problems, this is only half the story as the financial crisis was triggered by unsustainable increases in private debt, writes Paul de Grauwe, professor of economics at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium.

A Franco-German proposal to sanction eurozone budget sinners by stripping them of their EU voting rights faces massive opposition from other countries in the bloc, it emerged after a two-day summit in Brussels on Friday (29 October).

European Union heads of state will start discussions this week on a permanent crisis resolution mechanism amid persistent calls from Germany to introduce an orderly sovereign default procedure following the Greek debt crisis.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told the European Union on Wednesday (6 October) to stop piling pressure on Beijing to revalue its currency, saying a rapid shift could unleash disastrous social turmoil.

Werner Faymann, the Austrian chancellor, has rejected Germany's calls to penalise countries that break EU budget discipline rules, saying he does not believe in changing the treaties to fix the euro zone's debt problems. In an exclusive interview with EurActiv.de, he also gives his views on France's controversial Roma expulsions.

Eurozone governments panicked at the onset of the Greek crisis and now there is a real risk that austerity measures, hastily adopted, might prompt a double-dip recession, John Monks, secretary-general of the European Trade Union Confederation, told EurActiv in an interview.

The enforcement of future budget discipline rules must "leave no room for slippage," said EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn, lifting the veil on proposals due to be presented on 29 September.

European Union leaders meet on Thursday (16 September) as part of ongoing discussions to better coordinate their economic policies in the wake of the Greek debt crisis. But although progress has been made on some issues, discussions remain deadlocked over a proposed set of indicators to broaden economic surveillance among EU member states.

Theo Waigel, Germany’s former finance minister and one of the architects of the euro in the 1990s, says the Greek sovereign debt crisis has exposed the failure of the institutions underpinning the common currency, in particular the European Commission. He spoke to EurActiv.de in an exclusive interview.

The Greek sovereign debt crisis is forcing Europeans to rethink the coordination of their national economic policies, confronting the euro area with its most severe test since its launch eleven years ago.

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy has shed light on the ambitions of his task force on economic governance, which has been entrusted by EU leaders with proposing sanctions for countries that break public debt and deficit limits.

The president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday (21 June) called for no holds barred reform of the EU's fiscal and macro-economic policy, with deeper and more detailed surveillance of economies that are out of step with the EU's debt targets.

Austerity measures to cut public debt and rein in speculation on the euro, while necessary in some countries, are threatening to kill Europe's fragile economic recovery, policymakers warned ahead of a summit today (17 June) aimed at strengthening budget discipline in the European Union.

Austerity measures to cut public debt and rein in speculation on the euro are threatening to kill the fragile economic recovery, warned policymakers ahead of a summit aimed at strengthening budget discipline in the European Union. Maria João Rodrigues, former special advisor at the European Commission and an economics professor, spoke to EurActiv in an interview.

Trade unions in southern Europe have ramped up their efforts to block deficit cutting austerity plans, as Spain saw its sovereign debt rating cut on Friday (28 May), causing markets to tumble.