Verklaring van de Spaanse minister Elena Salgado naar aanleiding van Ecofin-top (en)
There has been a very pleasant atmosphere in today's meetings and the truth is that we have reached a consensus on almost everything because all of the issues have been worked on in depth: For example, during lunch we talked about stability and convergence programmes i.e. about the conclusions of what the Council's opinions will be, which in keeping with what the Commission has sent to each of the countries, based on the documentation the countries submitted (you know that there is always a dialogue between the Commission and the Member States), and lastly some recommendations that will become the Council's decisions. Therefore, as an informal agreement has been reached, that Council decision could be adopted in the first formal Council meeting that is called, foreseeably a Justice Council on 22 April as point A. In short, in these stability and convergence programmes and in keeping with the recommendations each country has received, with the opinions from the Commission.
The conclusion is that the majority of countries have, in one way or another, already begun fiscal consolidation, in some countries more clearly than in others. In some it will begin in 2011, and in almost every case, the countries are evidencing growth which is going to gain pace with time, more clearly towards the end of the period under assessment.
Commissioner Rehn i, continuing with what he had already explained in the morning in the Eurogroup, about which you have been informed, has advanced a little further in the way in which he is going to present a proposal about how to establish better coordination in economic policies and in supervision. We have been told he is working on a proposal that will be presented to us in the coming months so that jointly with the Commission we can better coordinate Member States' policy in order to enhance our global competitiveness.
She also advanced her idea that this proposal should contain some element to comply with the Commission's intention of paying more attention to debt reduction. Not only to consider the deficit figures but also public debt, the debt of the States. Then, in the first session, we reviewed the current economic and financial situation. In fact, we have seen that the economic situation is clearly improving, although growth in Europe is much lower than growth in other parts of the world. As regards the situation of the financial markets, this has improved in the last six months and we are convinced, as has been stated, that the settlement of the financial aid to Greece has provided relief for the markets and in general terms they have responded correctly.
In the following session, we talked about the meetings of the G-20 and of the spring assemblies of the IMF and the World Bank. In first place, we examined the letter, the document that as President of Ecofin I will deliver to the International Monetary and Financial Committee on 24 April. It is a document setting out the European position as regards the mandate of the institution and the government reform process, which is currently under way. Also, of course, we have wanted to continue saying that, in our opinion, the quotas and therefore the votes must reflect the importance of the countries in the world economy. We also believe that the participation of the Ministers in the IMF should be increased. As regards the mandate of the IMF, we applaud that the financial instruments dedicated to low-income countries are being improved. We also reiterate our commitment to continue acting against uncooperative jurisdictions in the fiscal sphere.
As regards the meeting of the G-20 on 23 April, we have discussed the terms of reference defining the European position. As is usually done, given that these terms of reference are quite long, they are summarised in a letter that I will send as President of Ecofin to the Presidency of the G-20, currently held by Korea.
A fundamental point in this meeting on the 23 April will be to continue working on sustainable growth and at the same time making progress on financial regulation reform. On sustainable growth, the reduction of global macroeconomic disequilibrium, the countries taking part in the G-20 meetings have been working and collecting all our data together, and now is the moment to start evaluating all this information.
Finally, we had a chance to analyse what are called national budget frameworks. We have had an excellent lecture by Professor Aldesina, an expert on these issues who has enlightened us with an interesting and very pleasant presentation on the influence of both deficit reduction policies and fiscal consolidation. We see that in the political climate of a given country with its common sayings about the fiscal consolidation process, evidence shows that the most important of these is not certain, namely, the widely-held belief that a process of expenditure reduction necessarily hinders economic recovery. There is evidence, as Professor Aldesina has told us, that this is not true, but rather that, in many cases the process of tax reduction, fiscal consolidation and deficit reduction gives rise to a higher stage of growth.
In this sense, national budgetary frameworks - following the comments of Commissioner Rehn - of course will include better co-ordination of economic policies in their policies for better co-ordination in EU countries. The intention is also to improve national fiscal frameworks in that they may be a reference to the Commission of the encompassing elements of their national budget frameworks before they are applied.
We believe that in doing this multilateral supervision exercise, the IMF should consider the euro zone and the regional dimension of the EU; in this sense we think pointing this out is of importance in the reduction of global macroeconomic imbalances
Tomorrow we will have the opportunity to further discuss all matters of financial regulation, but in any case, we have already indicated what we want to implement, for example, the council's principles of financial stability relative to compensation in the financial sector.