The good news from Brussels is that the meeting of

Ecofin

(the summit of the ministers of economy and finance of the Member States of the European Union) has given the go ahead to adopt the plan drawn up by the European Council on

RePowerEU

.

According to this proposal,

the national NRPs will be modified by 

adding an '

energy chapter

' and asking to use the Next Generation Eu loans for energy investments.

In essence, the project aims to add a new chapter of RePower to the National Recovery and Resilience Plans, drawn up by the EU Member States, as part of the Next Generation.

In this way,

investments and key reforms can be financed

to achieve the objectives of the European energy plan.

"We will see how many loan applications there will be from Member States before deciding on the next steps," said Vice President of the European Commission,

Valdis Dombrovskis

, at the end of the Ecofin.

The possible redistribution of unused loans by some capitals, provided for in the NRPs, in favor of the objectives indicated in the RePowerEu maxi-energy plan, "will require further work", specified the European Commissioner for Trade.

Dombrovskis then added that it was decided "to work on further temporary flexibilities regarding the

cohesion funds

remaining in the 2014-2020 financing period, to use them in the context of the current crisis ", specifying that" RePowerEu and Recovery do not finance income support measures or similar, this requires different sources of financing ".

The vice-president of the European Commission also clarified that in mid-October "the European Commission will present the update of the temporary framework for state

aid,

to allow governments to give necessary and targeted support to the economy".

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Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President of the Commission

But, despite the tools put in place at European level to cope with the increase in energy costs and the supply crisis, those responsible for the Brussels economy are not ruling out a difficult period of "contraction" in the coming months.

"Europe is paying a heavy price for its dependence on Russian fossil fuels," commented the European Trade Commissioner.

"We can no longer rule out a contraction in economic activity in the EU during the winter," said Dombrovskis.

Archive photo

Paolo Gentiloni, Commissioner for Economic Affairs

Gentiloni: “Same tools as the Sure program”.

Germany is opposed

Another topic addressed at the meeting of the European Union's economy and finance ministers concerned how to deal with the growth of inflation at the continental level, with the proposal by the Commissioner for Economic Affairs Paolo Gentiloni to use a similar instrument to that of Sure, the program adopted in the midst of the Covid emergency: "What we did with Sure during the pandemic was an interesting proposal" and that model "based on loans could be realistic", said Gentiloni arriving at the Ecofin meeting, specifying that the goal "is to increase solidarity to avoid fragmentation, and not to criticize this or that state".

AP Photo / Michael Sohn

German economy minister, Christian Lindner

But Gentiloni's idea immediately met with opposition from Germany, expressed by its economy minister

Christian Lindner

, who commented: "We must make progress on common gas purchases, we must change the structure of the electricity market, but the tools that were used during the pandemic cannot be transferred one by one ”in a context of“ supply shock and inflation scenario ”.

Along the same lines, Dutch Finance Minister

Sigrid Kaag

, who thinks "it is not necessary" to re-propose the scheme of the Sure model: "We are in uncertain times, we do not know how long the impact" of the war "will be on inflation and the economy.

After the Covid crisis “there are billions and billions available that we can use.

We have to free up the funds ”.

Towards the definitive okay to the minimum wage in the EU

The Ecofin meeting finally gave the last green light for the directive on

the minimum wage

in the EU.

The directive, already definitively approved by the European Parliament in September, will enter into force on the twentieth day following its publication in the Official Journal and Member States have two years to transpose it into national law.

The text aims to strengthen the role of collective bargaining, which will have to reach up to 80%.

On the other hand, there is no real minimum wage in the EU, and even less an obligation to introduce it in countries where it does not already exist, such as Italy.