Le European rules on public finances need to be changed to give more impetus to growth and investments, especially green ones, perhaps by ceasing to endlessly discuss the decimals of GDP-deficits. This is the message that Wednesday Paolo Gentiloni, European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, will launch in the press room in Brussels, where he will illustrate the Communication on the revision of the economic governance of the Eurozone.
Next to the former Italian prime minister will be the vice president of the European Commission, the Latvian Valdis Dombrovskis, which represents the other soul of European economic policy, the rigorist one of the Northern countries.
The document that will be presented tomorrow therefore represents a compromise between two opposing forces, but the goal is nonetheless open the debate between the European Ministers of the Economy on the reform of the rules on deficit and debt. By the end of 2020, in the light of what will emerge from the confrontation between governments, the Commission will present the final proposals.
According to some rumors collected by the newspaper The Republic, Gentiloni's document is divided into two parts. The first takes stock of how the "Two pack" and the "Six pack", the two operational arms of the Stability Pact, have worked in recent years. The second will feature a series of questions designed to stimulate discussion among ministers.
Without going too far, Gentiloni should suggest that the rules in force today, written between 2011 and 2015, were formulated to deal with a period of serious crisis: according to Brussels they worked, but now that the situation has changed they need to be changed. In particular, it is necessary to support investments, which are still below pre-crisis levels. It will probably not come to the golden rule requested by Italy (the deduction from the calculation of the structural deficit), but the share of green investments could be included among the criteria that lead Europe to grant flexibility on accounts.
The Commission also believes that the rules should be more understandable to the public, because they produce important political consequences on the governments that apply (or ignore) them.
