Brussels, 22/11/2013 (Agence Europe) - France is calling for economic and budget policies to focus on growth rather than budget consolidation.
Upon arrival at the Eurogroup meeting on Friday 22 November, French Economy Minister Pierre Moscovici said it was important to discuss the combined impact of budget consolidating policies. France, he went on, has been saying since 2008 that the focus must be on growth. The eurozone finance ministers were due to discuss the draft budgets of 13 eurozone nations and the assessment of them by the European Commission (see EUROPE 10964). The Commission has not made any formal call for changes in the budgets, but says that three countries (France, the Netherlands and Slovenia) have no room for manoeuvre and five others (Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta and Finland) run the risk that their 2014 budget will break the stability and growth pact rules.
Moscovici says France has no room for manoeuvre because it had sought to strike a compromise between budget imperatives and growth measures. Opposing the views of Eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem (see related article), he said it was crucial for the eurozone to have its own financial capacity and a long-term head of the Eurogroup. Commenting on Germany's announcement that it would introduce a minimum wage, he said that this was a social victory that would encourage a rebalancing of macroeconomic imbalances in the eurozone using cooperative policies, and France itself was encouraging competitiveness through the use of tax credits.
Italy's economy minister, Fabrizio Saccomanni, said that he would be presenting his eurozone colleagues with measures the Italian government has unveiled following publication of its draft budget for 2014 a month ago. He spoke of the €12 billion privatisation programme and fiscal discipline structural measures that would reduce the Italian debt next year so that the country can be eligible for the investment clause (for which the deficit has to be below 3% of GDP). (MB/transl.fl)