12 July 2016

Remarks by J.Dijsselbloem following the Eurogroup meeting

Eurogroup President summarised the main topics discussed during the meeting: the effects of the outcome of the UK referendum; Spain and Portugal's non-compliance with the deficit targets; the post-programme surveillances in Ireland and Portugal; and unblocking investment in the EU.

This was our first meeting since the UK referendum so when discussing the economic situation in the euro area we of course also focused on the effects of the outcome of the UK referendum, talked about market reaction, the impact in Europe and in the Eurozone in particular. Of course, there is a high degree of uncertainty at this point on what the economic impact will be, as well as what the political impact will be throughout the Eurozone area. But it doesn't change our commitment to continue to work on sound growth-friendly fiscal policy, structural reforms, and sorting out the banking sector. Basically our agenda and our commitment to that agenda is unchanged.

On fiscal policies in specific we of course discussed Spain and Portugal following the recent Commission recommendations, or more specifically the recommended decisions by the Commission. I will not go into detail now given that we will discuss it at the Ecofin; it is an Ecofin decision. Let me just stress that the discussion is at this stage only about the question whether there is effective or ineffective action in Spain and Portugal. It was not on the follow-up decisions regarding sanctions, possible sanctions or the effect of actions this and in the coming years. So it was just about looking back. There was strong support for the two Commission recommendations today. We agreed that we should continue swiftly with the next steps in the procedures so that we give clarity and certainty to all involved as soon as possible.

We also briefly took stock of the latest post-programme surveillance (PPS). This was for Ireland and Portugal.

In Ireland, the good progress continues and there is no reason for great concern.

For Portugal, there are a few more concerns, risks in the economy and in the banking sector, which are acknowledged also of course by the Portuguese authorities. They are committed to work on that as well as to work on budgetary issues.

Both of these programmes will have another post-programme surveillance later on.

Finally we had a broad discussion on reducing barriers to investment, both on the public and private side. On the public side the discussion focused on the criteria for the investment clause, some statistical issues on how to deal with investments from public budgets. And on the private side we focused, on the basis of the paper the Commission prepared, on a couple of areas where work should be done to improve the efficiency of public administration, the business environment in our countries, and sector-specific burdens that hinder further private investments. More work will be done on that and we will continue on that topic later this year.

Full remarks

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