Eurogroup, Gentiloni: "Different ideas between ministers on the Stability Pact"

• Eurogroup, Le Maire: "The debt rule at 60% of GDP is obsolete, it must be changed"

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08 November 2021 The Ministers of Economy and Finance of the Eurozone countries have "different ideas" on how to make the rules on public finance more suitable for today's challenges, but around the table there is an "awareness "widespread problems that need to be addressed.

To take stock of the situation is the European Commissioner for the Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, in Brussels at the end of the first discussion between the ministers on the revision of the EU rules on the budgets of the states.

"It is a double-sided discussion - says Gentiloni - on the one hand we have very consolidated ideas and perfectly understandable and different national positions, in a discussion that has been going on for over ten years; on the other there are some truths: the low cost of debt , the shock of the pandemic that has increased the level of debt in all Member States, the investments we need if we want to be serious. This awareness around the table is there. On solutions, on how to deal with this problem, we must work to build a consensus in the coming months: of course there are still different ideas around the table ".

Some countries, Gentiloni continues, "underline the need to create space in budgets with robust policies to face future crises. We all know that the discussion is not over, that it is there, but it is interesting that we are taking note of the situation in which we are We find. The discussion in the next session of the Eurogroup will be very useful "in this respect, he says. 

The European Commissioner for Economy then underlines: "We have to seriously reduce" the high levels of public debt in Europe, "but in a growth-friendly way, which is not easy at all. there is a consensus on how to do it, but there is a wide awareness that this is a problem to be addressed ".

"I have not heard among the ministers, and of course not even from the Commission - adds Gentiloni - proposals focused on changing the treaties or the thresholds provided for by the treaties. Of course there is a great awareness that we have high levels of debt and that we must find a way to seriously reduce them, despite the fact that it is less expensive than twenty years ago ".