17 January 2019

Recommendations on the economic policy of the euro area under the European Semester - January 2019

This note presents information on the Eurogroup’s policy actions in relation to the 2018 euro area recommendations and provides an overview of the recommendations addressed to the euro area as a whole under the European Semester for 2019.

Within the framework of the European Semester, the Council issues, on the basis of Commission proposals, annual policy recommendations on the economic policy of the euro area in accordance with Articles 121 and 136 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union. These recommendations typically cover fiscal, financial and structural issues, as well as institutional aspects of the Economic and Monetary Union.

The Council and the Commission are expected to monitor the implementation of the euro area recommendations, while the European Parliament scrutinises the European Semester, in particular by means of Economic Dialogues and contributes to the whole process via its resolutions.

Over the 2011-2018 European Semester cycles, the overall picture emerging from the assessment provided by the Commission is that the speed and degree of progress made in implementing the euro area recommendations have been significantly linked to the urgency of policy actions (e.g. set up of the Banking Union, progress achieved in correcting macroeconomic imbalances). Overall, a comparison between 2018 and 2019 euro area recommendations shows that there is no considerable difference in terms of suggested policies, even if the requests to deepening the EMU and a peculiar focus on high-debt countries (to exploit the economic momentum to build up fiscal buffers) are more emphasised than in the past.

Under the 2019 European Semester, the Commission issued its proposals for euro area recommendations on 21 November 2018. They will be discussed at the appropriate Council’s formations, in view of their endorsement by the European Council at its meeting in March 2019, as foreseen in the Council roadmap. 

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