The EU Commission wants to present its own reform proposals for the Maastricht rules in the coming year.
(Photo: ROPI)
Brussels The EU Commission presents the matter harmlessly: It is initially only a matter of initiating a debate. From the point of view of the Brussels authority, it is already clear where the discussion should lead: to a reform of the stability pact that the euro countries agreed in the 1990s.
“One thing is clear: changes are necessary,” says EU currency commissioner Paolo Gentiloni in an interview with Handelsblatt and selected other European business media. The former Italian Prime Minister contradicts the German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (SPD).
Scholz emphasizes that the Stability Pact has shown flexibility during the crisis. Gentiloni replies: He does not want to spend the rest of his term in office “looking the other way and ignoring reality”.
The so-called “Maastricht criteria” actually require that the euro countries limit their budget deficit to three percent and their total debt to 60 percent of their annual economic output. But the budget deficits of the euro countries averaged seven, their debt levels at 100 percent.
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