MEPs from the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) discussed, in the presence of the European Commission, how to better integrate social and environmental issues into macroeconomic governance at the European level and specifically into European fiscal rules.
Rapporteur for the ECON Committee, Aurore Lalucq (S&D, France), welcomed the European Commission’s ambition to be climate neutral. “But we won't get there if we don't loosen the budget constraints”, she said, convinced that the key to tackling chronic under-investment is “public spending”.
On behalf of the European Commission, Executive Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis recalled that a consultation lasting several months would be launched on Wednesday 5 February on how to simplify the Stability and Growth Pact and promote environmentally sustainable investment (see EUROPE 12406/15).
“It may be premature to draw conclusions” on the direction we are going to take, he said cautiously, while recalling the recommendations of the European Fiscal Board on the subject, in particular the proposal to introduce a “golden rule” for productive public investment (see EUROPE 12360/5).
Taking up the words of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, for whom “the European Green Deal is a new growth strategy for the EU”, Economics Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni said that both public and private investment should be facilitated. In addition, the budget process for the ‘European Semester’ for 2020 will for the first time incorporate the UN’s sustainable development objectives, he recalled, with the first country-by-country reports on the issue expected on Wednesday 26 February.
Klára Dobrev (S&D, Hungary) challenged the Commission on the fact that, despite good macroeconomic indicators, “inequalities have increased in recent years”, pointing to the situation of the working poor.
The Commissioner for Employment and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, acknowledged that inequalities that are too severe must be combated. One of our objectives is to strengthen the social market economy by reconciling the market with social and environmental protection, he said, drawing in particular on the Commission’s recent proposals on minimum wages (see EUROPE 12403/5, 12403/6). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)