Luxembourg, 04/06/2002 (Agence Europe) - EU Ministers for the Economy and Finance held a brief debate on Tuesday on the proposals of recommendations regarding the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines (BEPG). During the discussion, France, Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom expressed various degrees of reservation about a number of aspects of the text. The Spanish Presidency concluded that the document, which comprises footnotes on remarks made by these Member States, would be put to the approval of a forthcoming Ecofin Council (taking decisions by qualified majority) to be held in Seville or Luxembourg just before the Summit. The time this would save should allow France to learn the results of the legislative elections in France and also the results of the audit on its public finances before giving a final opinion on its timetable for regaining budgetary balance. France and Portugal confirmed the reserve expressed at the Eurogroup meeting (see above). Germany pointed out that it does not wish to link reform of the retirement system to the future of budgetary stability and proposed amending the Commission's text. Pedro Solbes, however, pointed out that he did not wish to amend his recommendation in any way, and the Presidency did not propose a compromise text.
This is the first time that approval of such a text has caused as much controversy. This can be explained by the fact that, for the first time, under pressure from the Commission and Council Presidency, the BEPG contain concrete recommendations on the goals to be achieved in public finance balance, although this traditionally comes under discussions on the Member State programmes for stability and convergence.
"We are in a particular situation in France (…). It was not particularly difficult to convince my colleagues (…) that it was urgent to wait (…). No-one challenged the fact that it was difficult to go further today", commented the new French Finance Minister, Francis Mer, speaking to the press. He added that the discussion would continue in Seville, "which will make it possible to note that we are all staying in line and that we are not quite the only ones to see small problems of interpretation". In his view, it is necessary to "find a common language, allowing credibility of the European commitment of each country to be assured, if it means doing this in terms that allow us to keep on track without necessarily being obliged to respect to the letter something that has always been expressed in terms of principle (…) which consists in saying: let us look seriously at the future, our responsibilities and behave accordingly". "This is what is in the Treaty", he said. He went on to conclude: "we are not clinging to a symbolic date. (…) Before, 2004 was 2002. We must not confuse the instrument with the aim. Our objective is to face up to problems seriously if we want to be responsible towards future generations".