Remarks by Jeroen Dijsselbloem at the press conference following the meeting of the Eurogroup of 27 January 2014

I first like to debrief you and make some remarks on the economic situation in the euro area and tell you on my recent talks in Asia and in Davos.

And then report on the Eurogroup meeting itself, in which we welcomed the new colleague, Michael Spindelegger i, from Austria. He and Wolfgang Schäuble presented new plans and the their policy priorities of their new coalition governments. I will say a few words on the introduction of the euro in Latvia, and then debrief you on the state of play on the programme countries which we discussed today: Greece, Portugal and Spain

And finally say a little bit about the priorities for the upcoming months

At the start of a new year, it is always good to look ahead where we stand in the Eurozone. And I am happy to say, that this year the outlook is gradually becoming more and more positive. Economic growth has been regaining positive territory and gradually becoming more robust throughout the Eurozone. Sentiment indicators are all showing increasing confidence in the economic recovery. The PMI for the euro area has for example shown a steady increase over the past months and is clearly consistent with positive growth at a value of now almost 54. The latest debt figures as published by Eurostat earlier this month were also encouraging, with the average debt ratio registering the first fall in absolute terms since the fourth quarter of 2007

I believe that this positive trend can and will be maintained. It is also the signal that I received during my visits to Asia and Davos, where I was joined in Hong Kong by Klaus Regling and in Beijing by Olli Rehn i. It was broadly recognized both in Asia and the World Economic Forum that Europe has come a long way. Investors seemed to have shifted their worries to other parts of the world, which is from a European perspective of course a good sign. And certainly a sign our strategy is working and has to be pushed through. That brings me to a point which I always make wherever I speak about the Eurozone is the importance to push structural reforms further. To strengthen our economies and become more competitive. And that was also the message I gave during my visits in Asia. There was a great deal of interest in the work we are doing on the Banking Union and also appreciation on the progress we made on the Banking Union. We have come a long way and I think 2014 is going to be a year in which we are finalising also the fundamentals to underpin a stronger euro area

Let me now turn to the outcome of the Eurogroup today

We welcomed first of all Andris Vilks, the Finance Minister of Latvia, who had already been attending our meetings as an observer, but now of course we welcomed him as a regular Member

He told us about the smooth changeover process, which took place in Latvia. We congratulated him and look forward to welcome Latvia as member of ESM in a few months

Economic developments in Latvia are encouraging, as confirmed by the latest Commission post-programme review: Latvia enjoys one of the fastest growth rates in the EU and the economic outlook for 2014 and 2015 is equally positive (with estimated growth figures 4.1% and 4.2% respectively) and the budgetary situation is stable, with fiscal deficits projected to remain between 1% and 1½% of GDP in 2013 2014 and 2015

The Lithuanian authorities have also expressed their intention to adopt the euro on 1 January 2015. As you know the process is there. The Commission and the ECB will publish their regular convergence report that will come out early June. And on the basis of that and after that decision making in the Eurogroup and ECOFIN can take place

That brings me to the Programme countries

First of all on Greece, I am sorry to say that the review is not yet concluded and further work is needed in Greece before the Troika can return to Athens. We called on Greece and the Troika to do their utmost to conclude the negotiations as soon as possible. And on basis of a positively concluded review and only on that basis we will then come to that once again in the Eurogroup meeting

On Portugal, we were debriefed on the main findings of the tenth review mission. The programme remains on track and we were reassured that the government has identified adequate compensatory measures following the latest Constitutional court ruling

And we welcomed the success of the recent bond issuance, a further important step towards market re-entry. There are still two more reviews to go, we did not discuss Portugal's exit strategy today but we will be doing so closer to the end of the programme, which as you know is in May

On Spain, we discussed the main findings of the fifth and final review of the financial sector programme and welcomed that the programme was successfully ended on 22 January

We encouraged of course the Spanish authorities to keep with resolve the reform momentum, beyond the banking sector, in order to cope effectively with any remaining macroeconomic challenges

Let me finally say a few things about the upcoming months for the Eurogroup

Our main priority will be pushing through structural reforms to strengthen sustainable growth in the euro area. We will come back at the economic situation when the Commission will publish its winter forecast

Equally important is to complete the Banking Union. In the next meetings we will seek to finalise the operational framework for the ESM direct recapitalisation instrument, on which we already reached an agreement on the main features last June

On the SRM, our aim is to finalise the negotiations and that is of course primarily a responsibility for the Greek presidency and the Commission negotiations on the SRM package in time for the April plenary session of the European Parliament, including the intergovernmental agreement on the Single Resolution Fund. That is currently being prepared and we will come to that in February in the Eurogroup plus meeting. We will also discuss the preparation of the SSM asset quality review and stress test once the ECB has published further details on the methodology that they will use

On the programme countries, I already mentioned the next steps for Greece and Portugal. On Cyprus, the Troika is going back to Nicosia this week for the third review of the programme and we will discuss the outcome of that review once the mission is concluded