The meeting of the “EP-CEPS group was held yesterday in the European Parliament Dialogue” to discuss the next European Council on 1 and 2 March. The meeting, chaired by the first Vice President of the European Parliament Gianni Pittella, saw the interventions of the same Pittella, by Daniel Gros (CEPS director) and Stefano Micossi (member of the board of directors of CEPS and Director General of Assonime), and the comments of the European deputies Pervanche done (President of the Employment and Social Affairs Committee) e Sven Giegold (Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs).
Economic conditions have worsened considerably in recent months: the eurozone has slipped into recession, and growth forecasts in Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy have been revised downwards. As a result, unemployment is on the rise again.
The main concern is that, while the peripheral countries of the euro area, due to severe budget cuts, experience a drastic reduction in activity, the core countries and the Council and the European Commission, do not they help to sustain growth and reduce economic imbalances. Furthermore, private financing flows from high-savings to high-deficit countries are almost completely stopped.
In this situation, there is a risk that fiscal consolidation efforts will backfire and that sovereign debt will become unsustainable. Raising the growth rate of the euro area and of the Union must be a priority and imperative commitment of the European Council.
Therefore, the “EP-CEPS Dialogue” group is strongly supporting the letter recently signed by the twelve heads of government of the European Union which underlines the "need to restore trust among citizens, businesses and financial markets, in Europe's ability to grow in a strong and sustainable way". In particular, during the meeting the importance of the full implementation of the Services Directive was underlined, "to speed up the implementation of the third energy package, to step up efforts for the creation of a true digital single market, and to launch a new initiative to reduce bureaucracy that hinders innovation and employment”. Again according to the group, “strong action in these sectors is essential to stimulate domestic investment and consequently growth potential. Countries with healthy budgets should exploit all the spaces available to support economic activity”.
Here are the requests to the European Council made during the meeting: “The European Council should ask Member States to step up their efforts for the completion of the internal market and the Commission should use all its powers to promote the timely fulfillment of these obligations. These obligations should be subject to the conditions set out in Article 121 TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), with sanctions for countries that do not comply with the indications of the Commission"
Furthermore, "the European Council should invite the European Commission to present proposals to speed up the disbursement of cohesion funds and structural funds, and increase investment through the EIB and the EIF for worthy infrastructure projects, in order to promote the internal market (including by increasing the capital of the EIB). The Commission should also be invited to present proposals to apply already in the current financial perspective all possible innovative techniques of leveraging the Community budget and EIB resources and encouraging private investment ??in infrastructure projects.
