Party), Philippe Lambert focuses on economic
questions (fiscal and governance issues in particular), as well as on
industrial, research and innovation matters.
Commission and Council Proposals
Since the American sub-prime crisis swept through Europe, illuminating the unsustainable nature of economic models such as Ireland (the Celtic tiger) or Spain and making it impossible to disguise the damaged state of the Greek economy, the discussions on economic governance that dragged on during the negotiations of the Lisbon constitutional treaty have now resumed with a vengeance. This has led to a number of regulations (for the most part restrictive) that define the framework within which Member States can conduct economic policy to their individual advantage. The Stability and Growth Pact has, since 1997, defined the rules of fiscal discipline to ensure that excessive public deficit does not harm budgetary consolidation and has no negative repercussions on other members of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). Even though the pact was reformed in 2005, the European institutions have wished to strengthen it as the current crisis has brought to light the need for more attention to be paid to national debts. Because some Member States have deliberately used false statistics to mask the poor state of their public finances, there is a new directive to define the precise norms to be used for the collection, audit and use of data required for the effective monitoring of public finances and the establishment of medium term budget programming. Last autumn, when the Commission and the Council task force met to present their proposals, it was also decided to add a macroeconomic pillar to economic governance. This was to monitor a number of early warning indicators that could indicate potential risk of ‘slippage’ in a Member State, endangering its economy and that of other Member States or even the whole eurozone. If the indicators demonstrate a problem, a more detailed enquiry is required and the Member State in question has to present a plan of action to correct the situation. This plan will only be accepted if it is judged equal to the challenges it faces; should this not be the case and should the country in question persist in ignoring the recommendations of its peers and the Commission it will incur sanctions, initially in the form of a warning and later, if no effective action is taken, in the form of fines.
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This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Content
Commission and Council Proposals
Discussions in the European Parliament
A reformed Stability and Growth Pact detrimental to the most vulnerable and future generations
Prevention and correction of macroeconomic imbalances
Horizontal provisions
Some general comments
A couple of thoughts on voting
This project has been funded with support
from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of
the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may
be made of the information contained therein.