Brussels, 22/01/2013 (Agence Europe) - The new head of the Eurogroup, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, tried on Monday 21 January 2013 to keep everyone happy by highlighting the need for the eurozone to return to growth, continue consolidating public finance and make extra efforts when it comes to structural reforms. In order to make a point, Spain did not back his appointment.
Delighted to take over from Jean-Claude Juncker, whose leadership and commitment were hailed by one and all, Dijsselbloem said the time had come to put the question of the integrity of the eurozone behind one. Aware that ordinary people are feeling the impact of the crisis, he promised to take action to protect the cherished European social model. With these comments, the new Eurogroup chair repeated his social democrat credentials in order to reassure the struggling eurozone nations that are not happy about being led by a minister from a triple-A country renowned for its repeated calls for tighter surveillance of budget policy. French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said the chair might be Dutch, but it was not the Netherlands itself that was chairing the meetings. He pointed out that Dijsselbloem had started his speech in French, although he had reverted to English to answer reporters' questions.
The French believe the new Eurogroup chair, a finance minister who's only been in the job for three months and is unknown on the international stage, will force Germany and France to work more closely together. The outgoing chair, Jean-Claude Juncker, said it was true that Dijsselbloem had not had such a long career as himself, but he was sure that he had the skills needed for the job because he was a European through and through. Retiring from the chairmanship means Juncker can now speak his mind more freely.
Outlining his new work programme, the new head of Eurogroup pledged to continue apace with the work to introduce banking union, starting with the introduction of a eurozone bank supervision system under the aegis of the ECB. In his work programme, he says: “The current fiscal consolidation strategy within the euro area in line with the strengthened Stability and Growth Pact and the Fiscal Compact (Budget Pact, Ed.) should continue to be one of the cornerstones of our strategy to ensure confidence of markets and consumers”. He said structural reforms needed to be focused upon to boost competitiveness and tackle unemployment, particularly youth unemployment.
Pointing out that problems had tarnished Eurogroup communication at the height of the financial crisis, Dijsselbloem said he wants to speak with a clear, authoritarian voice, and to hold regular dialogue with the European Parliament and the social partners (trade unions and employers). He is planning to establish a clear mandate for representing the euro internationally and said that over the next few months, he would be updating the Eurogroup's working methods (unchanged since 2008) to ensure they incorporate recent reforms to European economic governance.
The day before, Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan welcomed the fact that Dijsselbloem is from a small member state. Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter hoped the hard line the Dutch had always followed on monetary policy would continue. Opposing the granting of any top job to a country with the triple-A credit rating after Spain's representative was removed from the ECB Executive Council, Spain was the only country that refused to back Dijsselbloem's candidature. (MB/transl.fl)