Brussels, 09/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday, the Ecofin Council is to have on its table a report by the EU's Committee on Economic and Financial matters chaired by Mario Draghi. The report proposes a series of improvements for more effective follow-up of Member State stability programmes in the context of the Stability Pact.
The ANSA Agency thus foresees the main novelties proposed as: (1) Budgetary objective (balance or surplus): the Member States, while defining their medium-term objectives, should mainly take into account the possibility of having to face up to a deterioration in the economic situation and other unforeseeable risks, in order to prevent this objective from becoming a "mobile" objective. (2) Content of programmes: the programmes should indicate: - a series of realistic macro-economic estimates (inflation, GDP …) and quantify the budgetary impact of their main economic measures; - forecasts on the impact of an ageing population on spending until 2050. (3) The timetable: should be tighter. Thus, the governments should send their programmes to Brussels as soon as they have presented the draft budget to parliaments for the following year (between mid-October and early December), and Ecofin should complete examination of the programmes in February of the following year at the latest.