The Finance Ministers of the euro area will discuss their experiences in drawing up national recovery plans on Monday 18 January at the Eurogroup meeting.
The objective of this discussion is to keep the euro area in mind in the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the budgetary instrument at the heart of the Next Generation EU Recovery Plan (see EUROPE 12626/1). The national recovery plans, which must be sent to the European Commission by 30 April, will thus become more “coherent”, said a European source on Thursday 14 January.
The new political crisis in Italy is not expected to be discussed on Monday, although the Italian minister, Roberto Gualtieri, could inform his counterparts of the situation in his country. The draft Italian recovery plan, which the government unveiled Tuesday evening, is one of the issues that led the Italia Viva party of Matteo Renzi to withdrawal its support from the ‘Conte’ government (see EUROPE 12635/10). Italy is the first beneficiary of the European Recovery Plan.
The Ecofin Council will also take stock on Tuesday 19 January of the Facility issue, the legislative text of which will be approved by the European Parliament in February.
The Eurogroup will also have an exchange of views on the macroeconomic imbalances that the crisis arising from the Covid-19 pandemic has “exacerbated”, according to this source, who cited, for example, high public debt and the stock of non-performing bank loans.
The European Commission is preparing specific reports covering twelve Member States for which imbalances have been identified (see EUROPE 12604/1).
EU-US. Finally, the ministers will discuss EU-US relations in the area of financial services, just a few days before the handover of power in the United States. The debate will be attended by economist Lawrence Summers, a Harvard professor who has worked for previous Democratic governments.
The international role of the euro could be a subject for discussion as the European Commission prepares to present a specific communication on Tuesday 19 January. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)