Ministers van Financiën EU passen nieuwe regels toe (en)

Margrethe Vestager i, Danish Minister for Economic and Interior Affairs and Olli Rehn i, Vice President of the European Commission at today's ECOFIN meeting.

Photo:Council of the European Union

The Danish ECOFIN-Presidency focuses on implementation. Therefore, the implementation of the strengthened economic governance is also a key priority in the Danish ECOFIN work programme that the Minister for Economic Affairs and the Interior, Margrethe Vestager, presented for her European colleagues at today’s ECOFIN meeting. The Council agreed on stricter rules for regulation of trade with financial derivatives which played a role in the financial crisis. Negotiations on the dossiers are now to be finalized with the European Parliament.

On the Minister’s first day in the presidency seat of ECOFIN, she presented the Danish Presidency’s priorities for the work in ECOFIN over the coming six months. The four overall priorities for the Danish presidency are: Implementation of the economic governance reform and effective implementation of the first full round of the European Semester, strengthened financial regulation, strengthened cooperation on tax matters and finally strong EU mandates in the G20.

At today’s meeting EU’s minister of economics and finance used the new rules of the game for sound economic policies for the first time when they followed up on the country-specific recommendations regarding excessive deficits.

Margrethe Vestager says: “Implementation is a key word for the Danish Presidency. It is time to implement the good decisions that have already been taken and to show the citizens and the markets that the decisions taken will be realized. Today, we applied the new rules of the game when we assessed whether Belgium, Cyprus, Malta, Hungary and Poland have complied with their recommendations to reduce their budget deficits. The assessment for all countries, except Hungary, was that they have made sufficient efforts to comply with their recommendations. This is a sign that the new rules of the game are working as intended”.

Under the headline of “the European Semester, the Annual Growth Survey for 2012 and the EuroPlus Pact” the ministers discussed how to consolidate their public finances and at the same time promote growth. Today’s debate will form the basis for council conclusions to be adopted at the ECOFIN meeting 21 February and the council conclusions are to serve as an input for the Heads of State economic summit 1-2 March.

Margrethe Vestager says: “I am pleased with today’s debate. There was consensus that consolidation of public finances is necessary but not a sufficient condition to bring Europe of the crisis. Reforms that contribute to the consolidation of public finances and at the same time promote growth - also in the short term - were therefore the focus of today’s debate.”

The Council agreed on stricter rules for regulation of trade with financial derivatives which played a role in the financial crisis. Negotiations on the dossiers are now to be finalized with the European Parliament.

Margrethe Vestager says: “We are now in the process of ensuring stricter regulation of the financial sector and I am pleased that we already today reached a concrete result in the form of a council agreement on regulation of trade with derivatives. Now the only thing missing is a final agreement with the European Parliament. This is an important step towards improved regulation of the financial sector - this work will continue with other legislative initiatives in the area of financial regulation during the Danish presidency”.

Photos from today's meeting in the Council

Webcast of the ECOFIN meeting and the press conference (Council website)