Regulation (EU) 2024/1263 on the effective coordination of economic policies and on multilateral budgetary surveillance

What it is

PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council. ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council. BACKGROUND: this proposal forms part of a package and aims to replace Council Regulation No 1466/97 on the strengthening of the surveillance of budgetary positions and the surveillance and coordination of economic policies (the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact). It is accompanied by: - a proposal to amend Council Regulation (EC) No 1467/97 on speeding up and clarifying the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure (the corrective arm of the Stability and Growth Pact); The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs adopted the report by Esther de LANGE (EPP, NL) and Margarida MARQUES (S&D, PT) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council the effective coordination of economic policies and multilateral budgetary surveillance and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 1466/97. The committee responsible recommended that the European Parliament's position adopted at first reading under the ordinary legislative procedure should amend the proposal as follows: This Regulation sets out rules ensuring effective coordination of economic policies of the Member States. It lays down detailed rules concerning the content, submission, assessment and monitoring of national medium-term fiscal-structural plans as part of multilateral budgetary surveillance by the Council and the Commission, with the involvement of the European Parliament, so as to promote debt sustainability, investments and reforms , common priorities of the Union, and sustainable and inclusive growth and resilience in the Member States and to prevent the occurrence of excessive government deficits, by medium-term planning ensuring consistency within the Union, including the euro area. In order to ensure closer coordination of economic and relevant social policies and sustained convergence of the economic and social performance of the Member States, the Council and the Commission, with the involvement of the European Parliament, should conduct multilateral surveillance within the European Semester whose overarching aim is to ensure closer coordination of economic, social, budgetary and structural policies. The reference trajectory should be set in levels of net expenditure. It should ensure that: (a) the public debt ratio is put or remains on a plausibly downward path, leading to sustainable debt reduction or stays at prudent levels ; (b) the government deficit is brought and maintained below the 3% of GDP reference value; (c) the fiscal adjustment effort over the period of the national medium-term fiscal-structural plan is at least proportional to the total effort over the entire adjustment period; (d) the public debt ratio stabilises over the adjustment period and is reduced every year over the projection period on average by at least one percentage point of debt to GDP for the Member States with a debt-to-GDP ratio exceeding 90% and at least half a percentage point for the Member States with a debt-to-GDP…

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