On Thursday, 15 June, 11 finance ministers led by Christian Lindner of Germany stressed the importance of [enacting] a reform of the European economic governance framework that would enable public debt—which has built up in recent years in the euro area so as to cope with the Covid-19 pandemic and the energy crisis—to be effectively reduced.
“The point is: We cannot allow debt levels to rise indefinitely from crisis to crisis. This would permanently overload public finances, which is particularly costly in times of rising interest rates”, the ministers say. “This is money that can be put to better use elsewhere”. In their opinion, in order to preserve their credibility with regard to the markets, Member States must reduce their excessive deficit and debt levels in a “realistic, timely and sufficient” way.
The 11 ministers believe that the reform of the pact needs to make it possible to implement “reliable, transparent, easily measurable and binding” fiscal rules. According to the ministers, this involves having “quantitative criteria” that apply to all EU countries and that set clear minimum requirements that favour fiscal consolidation and growth.
“After all, fiscal policy is about quantifying political priorities”, they assert.
They also advocate the European Commission’s “essential role” in enforcing future European fiscal rules.
See the letter from the Austrian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Estonian, German, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgian, and Slovenian ministers: https://aeur.eu/f/7IO (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)