Ministers van Financiën eurozone komen strengere controle op begrotingen overeen (en)
The Ministers of Finance of the 16 countries using the euro as their currency agreed in Madrid on Friday on the need to reinforce budgetary vigilance, to supervise the macroeconomic disequilibrium in the eurozone more closely and to establish a permanent mechanism for crisis resolution.
The President of the Eurogroup and Prime Minister of Luxemburg, Jean-Claude Juncker i, said at the end of the meeting that the debate was focussed on "extracting conclusions from the crisis that we are passing through" and on guiding the proposal that the European Commission must present before June for the development of the new instruments for economic coordination as called for by article 136 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Juncker stated that fiscal vigilance transcends the budgetary framework and that efforts should be concentrated on the disequilibriums in the eurozone, in particular on divergences in competitiveness. Therefore, in each forthcoming Eurogroup meeting, the situation of the competitiveness of its members will be reviewed.
In fact, we are going to begin this debate by examining the situation in Spain and Finland. And then will come Portugal and Luxembourg. And so we will go on with the others’, he said.
He also said that there had been agreement on the need to set up a permanent mechanism to combat the crisis and that the European Commission was expected to present specific measures.
On the financial difficulties faced by Greece, he assured that the Government of Athens had not asked for financial assistance from the Member States nor from the International Monetary Fund, following the agreement by the Ministers of the Eurozone on a rescue plan worth 30 billion euros.
He confirmed that the technical and legislative preparations in the Member States if the plan were to be activated are advancing well, together with the discussions of the European Commission and the European Central Bank with for IMF to finalise the conditions for the loan.
The European Commissioner for Financial and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn i, insisted on the need to reinforce the Stability and Growth Pact, which requires budgetary discipline from Member States, and said that he would present specific proposals on 12 May that might include new secondary legislation.
He specifically referred to the possibility for national budgets to be subjected to an inter-pares review before being submitted for parliamentary approval. He said that the stability programmes presented by the Member States in Brussels were frequently based on "optimistic" macroeconomic indicators.
The President of the European Central Bank,Jean Claude Trichet i, insisted on the need to reinforce supervision of the divergences in relative competitiveness in the eurozone countries, which in turn should allow a reduction in current account deficits.