The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, assured that the institution is “looking into everything that we can do to help to address the impact on the economy” of the COVID-19 virus epidemic which continues to spread in Europe, Monday 9 March, presenting to the press the results of the first 100 days of the Commission's action and the next major steps of its mandate (see other news).
To this end, an urgent agreement of the Twenty-Seven is needed on the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2027 to meet the challenges facing Europe, added Mrs von der Leyen.
This weekend, the Commission demonstrated its ability to react quickly by giving the go-ahead to the budgetary measures of 6.3 billion euros announced by Italy, where several northern regions are at a standstill, to deal with the impact of the coronavirus, which would reduce the public deficit from 2.2% to 2.5% of Italian GDP.
“Any one-off budgetary spending, incurred in relation to the response to the outbreak, would be excluded by definition from the computation of the structural balance and not taken into account when assessing compliance with the required fiscal effort under the existing rules”, said Commission Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis and Economics Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni in a letter made public on Saturday 7 March in response to the Italian government's announcements.
The upward revision of Italy's general government deficit will be included in the country's stability programme and analysed by the Commission in its spring economic forecasts expected on 7 May.
After the cut in the Fed's key rates, the European Central Bank, whose Governing Council is meeting on Thursday 12 March, is under pressure to act decisively as well. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)