Brussels, 04/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - Finance ministers of the euro-zone met on Monday evening in Brussels within the Eurogroup to take stock of the general economic situation, while the slide in the budgetary deficit causes growing concern. They discussed the economic context on the basis of a European Commission document that will be adopted during the Ecofin Council on 13 December (and submitted to the European Council of Laeken), and held a round the table discussion on the state of progress in adoption of the stability programmes in the euro-zone Member States.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday morning, Eurogroup President Didier Reynders refused all comment on the worrying development of the German public debt, preferring to give explanations on the presentation and analysis procedures of updated stability and growth programmes. While acknowledging that most of the countries will not achieve the aims set in the context of the stability and growth programme, European Commissioner Pedro Solbes said for his part that he did not expect a Member State in the euro-zone to reach a public deficit of 3% of GDP in 2001 or 2002. He did, however, implicitly call on Germany to make an effort to achieve, in 2004, the target of balanced public accounts. He also specified that another country (France) is expected to have a public debt of 2%. Generally speaking, Mr Solbes admitted there was a slide in the public finance deficit, which should be 1.4% of GDP in 2002 in the euro zone. He stressed that only five countries out of the twelve were able to keep their commitments last year mainly because of the economic slowdown.
Mr Reynders simply pointed out that, for the time being, six countries had presented their updated programmes but that all these programmes will be made available to the Commission from 15 December (except for Portugal, which requested an additional two-day delay). In particular, France and Germany are expected to submit their programmes at the end of the week. Ministers called on the Commission to draft, for the first meeting of the Ecofin Council on 22 January, a report analysing all the stability programmes in order to "assume an attitude" at the beginning of the year (discussions on the programmes of each Member State will take place during the various meetings of the Eurogroup and Ecofin in January and February). The evening before, the Austrian Finance Minister, Karl-Heinz Grasser, had considered that all the countries should be "treated in the same way" and that "the large countries have not really consolidated their budgets as foreseen in the stability programmes". He added that the reduction of deficits and the continuation of structural reform are the "key to a strong and credible euro".
The Eurogroup continued its work on structural reforms by listening to a presentation by two Member States (Portugal and France). Laurent Fabius took stock of the tax and social measures that have encouraged improvements on the labour market in France (employment premium, tax credit, …) and Guilhermo de Oliveira Martins presented in a more general manner the evolution of the taxation and social system. The Commission will make a summary report in January on all the national presentations in this connection so that conclusions may be drawn on the best practices to be used in the euro zone.
Regarding the introduction of euro notes and coins, Mr Reynders specified that the information network has been in place since 1 December and that ministers were planning, at the meeting of the Eurogroup and Ecofin in Laeken, to "seek to place the analysis of this data in common". Information will be diffused each week until 31 December, then on a daily basis from 1 January 2002.