No European Commissioner and only eight ministers out of twenty-seven. It starts like this the Ecofin of Budapest, with the European Commission and many EU governments having decided to boycott the informal meeting of the finance ministers of the euro area and the European Union to protest against the attitude of the Hungarian presidency of the EU, after Viktor Orbán he used this role to meet Vladimir Putin in July. A visit that nobody liked, raising countless controversies inside and outside the European Union. They didn't even like the Orb Missionsán in China and Ukraine, both carried out without a mandate agreed at European Union level.
Only eight ministers present at Ecofin, Giorgetti is there
It had never happened first. Only eight ministers are present at the Ecofin in Budapest, less than a third of the total: among them There is Giancarlo Giorgetti, together with their counterparts Slovenia, Malta, Luxembourg, Cyprus, Belgium and Croatia, as well as of course the Hungarian minister Varga. The other 19 member states are represented by undersecretaries or officials. The Eurogroup President Pascal Donohoe is taking part, the European Commission does not participate with the heads of the financial (Valdis Dombrovskis) and economic (Paolo Gentiloni) portfolios. In their place are the general managers.
“There are conditions for successful meetings,” said Hungarian Minister Varga, putting a good face on a bad situation. “I am not disappointed: each country makes its own decisions on the level of representation and is free to decide who is the right person,” he replied to journalists who asked him for a comment on the boycott.
Ecofin: Meetings fail
And the boycott seems to have been successful since, in fact, the Eurogroup and Ecofin meetings they are rapidly progressing towards failure. Secondo Radiocor, citing EU sources, the final Ecofin press conference will be brought forward to mid-afternoon today, while it is traditionally organized at the end of the second day of informal meetings. A discussion on demographic trends and policies in Europe and the effects on the sustainability of public debt is confirmed for tomorrow, but a meeting with the press is not planned.
There is Christine Lagarde
At the top, however, there is ECB President Christine Lagarde, the day after the announcement of the Eurotower's second interest rate cut of 2024, which is expected to have a face to face with Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti. A meeting that is held after the controversy raised by the Italian government on interest rates. On Thursday, in fact, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani and the Minister of Enterprise, Adolfo Urso, had stated that from Frankfurt “more courage” would be needed. “The ECB should do what it deems appropriate, but we must not give in to rigorist whims that damage everyone's economy, including Germany's,” Tajani said.
Lagarde's response It came right during the press conference at the end of the Eurogroup. Asked by journalists, the president of the ECB said: “The European Central Bank is an independent institution”, “it is clearly foreseen in the treaties” and “we are not subject to political pressure of any kind”.
(Last update: 13.00pm on Friday 13 September).
