On Wednesday 14 February, the Member States’ ambassadors to the European Union (Coreper) reviewed the provisional agreement recently reached by representatives of the European Parliament and the Belgian Presidency of the EU Council on the revision of the Stability and Growth Pact (see EUROPE 13348/8).
Some countries have asked for clarifications on certain elements of the agreement, to which the Belgian Presidency and the Commission have undertaken to respond, with the aim of validating the consolidated text at the Coreper meeting on Wednesday 21 February.
Other countries regretted the fact that the methodology used to analyse the sustainability of a country’s public debt will not ultimately be adopted by the EU Council.
According to our information, the clause that will make it possible to exclude national co-financing for projects financed by European funds from the calculation of the public deficit, in order to create additional room for manoeuvre for public investment, has not met with any particular opposition. It was not included in the EU Council’s negotiating position.
The Commission will have to clarify the timetable for aligning budgetary surveillance procedures with a view to applying the revised Stability Pact from 2025.
On Thursday, in the margins of the presentation of the winter economic outlook (see other news), the European Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, confirmed informal discussions on the question of the timetable. “We will be discussing plans with the various governments after the summer”, he said.
To see the text of the European Parliament/EU Council agreement on the revision of the Stability Pact, go to https://aeur.eu/f/avn (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)