Brussels, 24/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - The six items of draft EU legislation on economic governance in Europe are among the Hungarian Presidency's economic priorities for the first six months of this year explained Hungarian Finance Minister György Matolcsy to MEPs on the European Parliament's economic and monetary affairs committee on Monday 24 January (see EUROPE 10298 and related article on page 15). The new legislation, introducing the “European semester” and revising the Lisbon Treaty to allow a European Stability Mechanism to be created in the summer of 2013 constitute “inter-related” issues that the Hungarians will try to conclude in parallel to demonstrate to the markets and to ordinary people the Hungarians' ability to achieve tangible outcomes, he explained, adding that Hungary's public deficit would fall below the 3% cut-off point (of GDP) this year. Hungary wants the Council to reach agreement in the meeting at the end of March. MEPs urged Matolcsy to commit to debates with the EP to ensure the two European institutions do not take separate paths and thereby risk missing the June deadline.
Answering a question from Liem Hoang Ngoc (S&D, France), Matolcsy said that it was not for politicians to make recommendations to the ECB about exchange rates because that would not make any sense in the absence of growth and job creation. He said the idea of issuing eurobonds was a “good idea”. The EP hopes to discuss this in connection with the economic governance legislation, but Matolcsy said that things first had to be sorted out among ministers. On Tuesday 15 March, the EP will be holding a seminar on economic governance, to be attended by national parliaments and the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy. (M.B./transl.fl)