On Thursday 21 December, the ambassadors of the Member States to the European Union (Coreper) formally adopted the EU Council's mandate on the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact, the day after the Ecofin Council reached a political agreement (see EUROPE 13318/13).
Negotiations with Parliament will focus on the ‘preventive’ arm of the Pact. The Council’s position in this area introduces two numerical criteria (‘benchmarks’), one to ensure a reduction in the excessive public debt (above 60% of GDP) of Member States, the other to reduce the public deficit to a level sufficiently below 3% of GDP, the threshold for triggering an excessive deficit procedure.
MEPs are proposing the same numerical criterion for reducing excessive debt as the Council (see EUROPE 13311/22, 13312/29). But they have not included a safety margin for the public deficit.
The European Parliament is only consulted on the ‘corrective’ arm of the Pact and the revision of national budgetary frameworks.
See the Spanish Presidency’s compromise proposals approved by the Member States:
- the ‘preventive’ arm of the Pact: https://aeur.eu/f/a80
- the ‘corrective’ arm of the Pact: https://aeur.eu/f/a7z
- national budget frameworks: https://aeur.eu/f/a7y (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)