Brussels, 11/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - Next Wednesday, the European Parliament will be discussing, in plenary, the report by José Javier Pomés Ruiz (Partido Popular) on the annual assessment of implementation of the stability and convergence programmes of the EU Member States. While noting that the budgetary objectives set out in the previous programmes have all been achieved or even over-achieved, the report stresses that budgetary consolidation must remain a priority and that the "much-improved economic environment and the positive growth expectations provide Member States with the opportunity to accelerate fiscal consolidation while at the same time introducing long-due structural reforms" (at the time when the Pomés Ruiz report was adopted, Austria had not yet presented its stability and convergence programme, which was then presented and examined. The Ecofin Council this week noted certain shortfalls, as did the European Commission: see EUROPE of 8 and 9 May, page 10, and 27 April, p.10.
The rapporteur restates his appeal in favour of a major "budgetary debate" on the stability and convergence programmes within the national parliaments, before adoption of these programmes, as this "would reinforce the individual commitment of the Member States" towards the economic policy coordination process. He congratulates the Member States which, like Italy, have already carried out this exercise. Furthermore, being of the opinion that the exercise of stability programmes should be adjusted in order to "better address the new challenges of sharing the same currency and growth", he invites the European Commission to present proposals along these lines. Mr Pomes Ruiz also calls on the Commission to clarify the early warning mechanism to be applied when events could affect the objectives set out in a programme and could call for revision of these objectives. He suggests that, in such a situation, a transparent consultation and information mechanism be established, which should be used before substantial corrective measures are taken or revisions of targets are granted. Furthermore, the rapporteur calls for the harmonised timing of submission of the programmes by the Member States further to improve comparability, taking into account that in the current round almost 6 months go past between the presentation of the first and the last national programme.
Overall, the rapporteur considers that the first round of the new reinforced multilateral surveillance was rather successful. It has to be borne in mind, he says, that "the procedure is new and improvements shall and will be made in the upcoming rounds". On substance, Mr Pomés Ruiz stresses that the updated programmes must take into account the "much-improved economic environment and the positive growth expectations", and affirms that it is essential to know whether the Member States benefit from this improvement in order to speed up budgetary consolidation, reduce taxation charges, introduce or strengthen structural reforms, or if this consolidation will serve (and here he cites the OECD Economic Perspectives December 1999) as a "pretext for easing the budgetary guideline" which, he believes, would "reproduce errors of assessment made at the end of the eighties and early nineties, which led to rapid degradation of budgetary positions".