EU Fiscal Board blames Commission for ineffective recommendations

11-10-2018

Commissioner for Economic Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, during the presentation of the interim forecast. [European Commission]

The European Fiscal Board complained on Wednesday (10 October) that member states had failed to use strong economic growth to reduce their public debt, and called for a major change of EU fiscal rules to ensure better enforcement by the European Commission.

Looking at the implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact, the President of the European Fiscal Board, Niels Thygesen, concluded that “the existing rules need to be reviewed critically with a view to simplifying them and improving compliance”.

The ‘sheriff’ of budgetary stability in the EU found that member states missed out on using the windfalls brought by the robust growth in 2017 to balance their public accounts.

Member states warn EU fiscal supervision 'inadequate'

Rules to control national spending are “complex” and the current approach is “inadequate”, the chair of the EU Network of Independent Fiscal Institutions, José Luis Escrivá, said on Tuesday (31 January).

Only those countries which already had a healthier fiscal position, like Germany, used increased revenues to reduce their debt and build capital buffers.

The board directly blames the Commission, with Thygesen saying its recommendations to member states “were not quite effective”.

The EU executive acted as if the eurozone was “still fragile”, he said.

European fiscal board chief: 'Stop talking about recovery, we are approaching normality'

Arguably, the EU’s economic governance framework is one of the most divisive issues among member states and top priority in Europe’s to-do list of outstanding reforms. Niels Thygesen does not shy away from this challenge. After questioning European Commission fiscal stance for this year recommendation, he proposed a return to a more ‘prudent’ orientation for 2018. In October, he will address one of the hottest topics: whether the application of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) unfairly favoured countries like France.

Italy

The Commission gave too much leeway to national governments, especially Italy, the fiscal authority concluded.

Among other issues, the body found that the Commission was “generous” when determining the structural effort the country should achieve or when quantifying the costs incurred by the refugee crisis.

This week, the Commission recalled that, since the new interpretation of the Stability Pact was introduced in 2015, Italy avoided an adjustment of around €30 billion (1.8% of its GDP).

European Fiscal Board calls for simple but tougher rules

The European Fiscal Board, the EU’s finance watchdog, wants clearer rules and real sanctions to punish profligate member states and limit the European Commission’s discretion to interpret the Stability and Growth Pact.

Against this backdrop, the institution called for a complete overhaul of EU fiscal rules.

In line with the recommendations made by other international bodies, including the IMF, the watchdog proposed to scrap the deficit target and simply maintain the debt objective of 60% of GDP.

In order to achieve that goal, the authority recommends a single tool: an expenditure ceiling determined by the growth potential of the country.

In good times, countries would spend less in order to reduce their debt, and in bad times they could increase their expenditure in order to fuel their economy and continue reducing their debt ratio.

Escape clause

The proposal gets rid of all the exceptions and loopholes of the existing rules. The board only maintains an escape clause if an independent body (unnamed), concludes that the countries overspent due to exceptional circumstances.

If no exceptional circumstances concurred, the fiscal authority proposed as sanctions limiting the access to a future anti-shock pot.

Commission’s 'stabilisation function' very modest, says eurozone fiscal sheriff

The European Fiscal Board has discredited the Commission’s proposed fund to protect investment as “very modest”, “narrow” and not well designed, its chair Niels Thygesen said on Monday (18 June).

For that reason, the board laments that the Commission did not propose the foreseen review of the Stability Pact when it outlined its ideas for the EU’s fiscal stabilisation function.

“We are concerned that progress on this major issue [the review of the rules] has been postponed into the 2020s by both the Commission and the Council”.

However, the EU executive said that the proposal deserved “careful consideration” when it was presented to the College on Wednesday, according to the budgetary watchdog.

Unemployment peaks to trigger new investment shield

A spike in unemployment numbers would give EU countries access to €30 billion of soft loans to maintain investment in times of economic turbulences, according to proposals unveiled by the European Commission on Thursday (31 May).

Comments

One response to “EU Fiscal Board blames Commission for ineffective recommendations”

Mike Parr says:

11/10/2018 at 08:41

There is quite a bit of “framing” in this article. First no reason is given why Euro-zone countries NEED to balance their “public accounts”. “Rules to control national spending are “complex”” – there is a reason for that – it’s because you are not dealing with a corner shop – much though that mentality (“gotta balance the books”) pervades the thinking of the old men pictured in the article.

By the way: I challenge the Fiscal Board to try living on an average wage in Italy for one year (or indeed an avernage pension) – go on try it – you self satisfied gits – you’d never last a month.

Germany – the good boy – pat on the head. But if we move to a linked subject – climate change (trust me on this – if you do not address this “problem” there will be no economy worth talking about – climate change trumps everything – although you would not think so listening to the dolts prattling on in this article) Germany is doing crap – transport? – has no policy – keep building diesels, coal – keep digging up lignite – keep RWE in business. Climate action sacrifices on the altar of fiscal rectitude – still Der Dikke Altmeir is probably happy.

Looking across the border at the Netherlands – same situation – oh look they had a surplus of Euro5bn in 2017 – pat on the head – cut the debt. But will miss their 2020 targets & keep losing court actions which will require them to get real on meaningful climate action now. Once again: Climate action sacrificed on the altar of fiscal rectitude.

Euro-zone (& non-Euro-zone) governments have a role to play in funding actions addressing climate change, i.e. decarbonisation. If the zeitgeist is “reduce pubic debt” that will reduce overall economic activity & it will make de-carbonisation much more difficult.

It is almost as if the European Fiscal Board do not have children or grandchildren & thus have no interest in the future – but young people deserve better than what is being offered by the current crop of has-beens and never-weres that use outdated “fiscal rules” to call the financial shots in the Euro-zone.

& yes I’m nothing – you can ignore me. But when the shit hits the climate fan & it becomes clear that the dolts mentioned in this article were told they needed to make changes but still clung to patently stupid rules and regulations – well their descendants will curse them – curse them for being old, stupid and doctrinaire – or as they say from where I come from – gormless bastards.

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