Brussels, 28/10/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 28 October, the European Commission took a positive view of the announcements of the French and Italian governments regarding the adoption of additional measures to come into line with their budgetary commitments for 2015.
The two letters published on Monday by the Italian Ministry of the Economy and the French Finance Ministry are “useful and constructive”, stated the spokesperson to Commissioner for the Euro Jyrki Katainen. These additional announcements, in greater detail and with more figures from Italy than from France, certainly constitute initiatives which go in the right direction (see EUROPE 11185). But from there to guaranteeing that the Commission takes the view that the new budgetary efforts announced will allow Italy and France not significantly to deviate from the commitments taken at European level is a step the spokesperson declined to take.
In line with the rules (2 pack) which stepped up budgetary surveillance in the eurozone, the European institution could this Wednesday adopt an official legal opinion regarding only the national 2015 budgets which it believes seriously infringe the stability and growth pact. This is a procedure it has yet to make use of. If it does decide to go down this road, the outgoing Barroso Commission would go out with a bang, the scale of which would also depend on the number of countries coming under fire. Five eurozone states (Austria, France, Malta, Italy and Slovenia) have been officially called upon to provide additional information, but the Commission declined to say how many replies it has received.
If it does not act on Wednesday, the Barroso Commission will hand the dossier over to the Juncker Commission, which will take up its duties in early November. The states will then have to wait for the second half of that month for the detailed opinion of the new Commission on the draft national budgets as a whole. (MB)