A coalition of 68 organisations from 12 EU countries made up of civil society, trade union leaders, environmental activists and economists signed a letter on Wednesday 17 February calling for a “profound reform” of European fiscal rules.
Fearing that the post-Covid-19 EU “will fall back into the trap of the post-crisis of 2008: fiscal consolidation ‘at all costs’, without ambition for the climate and biodiversity”, the signatories call for a more flexible fiscal policy, which would not “put the brakes” on European economies.
Presidents of the European Council, the Eurogroup, the Commission and other addressees of the letter are therefore called upon to rethink the current budgetary framework according to three principles: - the possibility for States to flexibly achieve national objectives of “full employment with decent jobs and a socially just green transition”; - the establishment of a “sizable and permanent” Community budget in favour of this transition and the European ‘Green Deal’; - the development of coordinated fiscal and monetary policy action.
“It is all the more urgent to turn fiscal policy from an end to a means”, the signatories conclude, calling for “[thinking] more functionally about what the wider economy, society and the planet we inhabit really need”.
See the letter: https://bit.ly/3punQDJ (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)