“The challenge”, said the President, “is finding the right pace: to reduce deficits steadily but gradually, and to protect sources of growth. (…) As we tiptoe away from financial emergency, as investor-confidence slowly returns, we need to build on that, with the focus on structural measures (…). Calling for further targeted actions to fight unemployment and speed up economic recovery, President Van Rompuy said such measures should “come together with structural reforms to improve business and employment conditions in a lasting way”, remarking that the reform package recently announced by the Portuguese government went “precisely in that direction”.
Particularly concerned about tight access to credit for companies and especially SMEs in certain parts of Europe, resulting from growing financial fragmentation, the President indicated that it’s a problem “that calls for even more engaged action from the ECB (…) within the strict limits of its mandate".
Turning to the ongoing efforts to strengthen the architecture of the economic and monetary union, President Van Rompuy stressed the need to keep the momentum on the banking union, and to move swiftly on both single supervision and single resolution: “We can’t afford to have a half-built system, (…) you can't have one without the other".
Finally, he called for quick agreement on the harmonisation of national resolution mechanisms and of deposit guarantee schemes, which, "together with the possibility of direct banking recap once the single supervisor is effectively in place, will allow us to bridge the period between now and the establishment of the single resolution".
Full speech
© European Council
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