02 May 2013

Remarks by Council President Van Rompuy after his meeting with Portuguese Prime Minister Coelho

Van Rompuy listed three key areas that needed to be addressed: Gradual but steady fiscal consolidation, advancing and intensifying structural reforms, and implementing measures to revive growth and fight unemployment in the short term.

First: Gradual but steady fiscal consolidation: excessive deficits must be contained but it clearly cannot be done overnight. I fully support the recent agreement by finance ministers to extend until 2015 the deadline to bring the Portuguese deficit below 3 per cent. But keeping the direction, that is essential. More broadly, we need to use in the EU the flexibility in our budgetary rules: focus on structural balances, not just nominal targets. But I repeat keeping the direction of fiscal consolidation remains essential. I commend the Portuguese government for its determination.

Second area: Advancing and intensifying structural reforms. In particular those that improve the business environment and make it easier for firms to invest, expand and create jobs. The measures announced last week by the Portuguese government are important in this respect.

Third area: we urgently need to implement measures to revive growth and fight unemployment in the short term. This is true in Portugal but also in the other EU countries suffering from very high unemployment. One of the main problems today is the lack of credit. This needs to be addressed. The European Investment Bank can be useful in this respect and I encourage it to speed up delivery. But more needs to be done - by all European institutions. We will return to this at the June European Council, where I will propose additional measures for immediate action on growth and jobs, especially aiming at young people.

All these efforts, in Portugal and in other euro area countries, are being accompanied with measures at the European level. Since last year, thanks to these measures, investors confidence in the euro area is gradually returning. The risk of a break-up of the monetary union is also behind us. This is a major achievement. It facilitates the adjustment effort, notably in Portugal.

But in addition, we need to continue working to reinforce the architecture of our Economic and Monetary Union. Last December, I proposed a roadmap towards a genuine EMU. In this context, the completion of the banking union stands out as the number one priority. The legislation setting up the single supervisory mechanism, with the ECB as the supervisor of all banks in the eurozone, is in its final stages of adoption. We need to complete this by setting up a single resolution. This is a matter of priority and can be done within our current Treaty.

Full speech

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