Joint meeting of the BUDG and ECON Committees on on the&nbsp;fiscal capacity. Exchange of views&nbsp;with Jeroen DIJSSELBLOEM, President of the Eurogroup, The Netherlands, &nbsp;Euclid TSAKALOTOS, Greek Minister of Finance, Luis de GUINDOS, Spanish Minister of Finance,&nbsp;Michel SAPIN, French Minister of Finance,&nbsp;Pier Carlo PADOAN, Italian Minister of Finance,&nbsp;Pierre GRAMEGNA, Luxembourg Minister of Finance,&nbsp;Edward SCICLUNA, Maltese Minister of Finance, Peter KAZIMIR, Slovak&nbsp;Minister of Finance and Reimer B&Ouml;GE (EPP, DE), Pervenche BER&Egrave;S (S&amp;D, FR), Rapporteurs - extracts from debate

Brussels

exchange of views

BERÈS, Pervenche (S&D, FR)

PADOAN, Pier Carlo (IT)

DIJSSELBLOEM, Jeroen

BÖGE, Reimer (EPP, DE)

DE GUINDOS JURADO, Luis (ES)

TSAKALOTOS, Euclid (EL)

GRAMEGNA, Pierre (LU)

KAŽIMÍR, Peter (SK)

SAPIN, Michel (FR)

SCICLUNA, Edward (S&D, MT)

Exchange of views with Members of the Eurogroup with Jeroen DIJSSELBLOEM, President of the Eurogroup, and Eurogroup Finance Ministers on Fiscal capacity for the euro area: extracts from debate (part2)

SOUNDBITE (English), Siegfried MURE&#536;AN (EPP, RO), What sources of finance do you see for the fiscal capacity especially to ministers from net contributors to the EU budget? Mr. Dijsselbloem, how much are your countries ready to contribute and how will you explain to unemployed people in France, Luxembourg and The Netherlands, that they have to come up with unemployed citizens in other member states in times of crisis.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jakob von WEIZS&#196;CKER (S&amp;D, DE), Of course a transfer Union defined in a good way is an insurance but it needs to be done. There is an additional possibility that is public good. And my question to you is do you see Euro area specific public goods that might need to be address?

SOUNDBITE (German), Bernd K&#214;LMEL (ECR, DE), What capacity should this budget have, now I read in the draft it would only take around between 1% and 7% of GDP? If we have an EU budget based on 1% of the GDP, I wonder where that money will come from, from the taxpayers, from which countries and what distribution scheme. Who should get it and who is deciding on this matter?

SOUNDBITE (Finnish), Pirkko RUOHONEN-LERNER (ECR, FI), Are you ready to consider other alternatives for this political integration, whether we lighten the Euro area or make it operational in order that one particular member state could leave the Euro zone without leaving the European Union?

SOUNDBITE (French), Jean ARTHUIS (ALDE, FR), There is social cohesion problem, social partners are reacting in a strictly national context. Could we not foresee that the Council will be able to come up with a part of the Euro zone configuration where the members of Euro zone will meet and discuss things outside the national framework and move towards an optimal Euro area?

SOUNDBITE (English), Peter KA&#381;IM&#205;R, Minister of Finance of , I can mention Mario Monti&rsquo;s group, he is working on this role to find out the resources for fiscal capacity. I will also tackle additional changes on how to deal with investments, for example. I would like to ensure just today we raised the issue on the second pillar of investments on how to tackle these obstacles which are working against us. Also, we have been talking about how to low the administrative burden, and how to, for example, tackle the issue with Eurostat, because accountably Eurostat is a big issue.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen DIJSSELBLOEM, President of the Eurogroup, Many structural reforms already pay into the budget in a positive way very quickly but it depends very much on the design of it. Some structural reforms are politically extremely unpopular, because it touches on traditional rights.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen DIJSSELBLOEM, President of the Eurogroup, Do not be told that you can only do structural reforms if you have money to spend first, because I think that is actually not true. I think that many experiences but again it depends very much on the design and the kind of reforms that you have on your agenda.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen DIJSSELBLOEM, President of the Eurogroup, What do we require from a country before it is good for example draw on unemployment benefit scheme. I would assume that it will also requires some structural measures to deal with structural unemployment. There will be obligations and rights at the same time. My thinking about how to organise solidarity is always a combination of giving rights to people but, on the other hand, also creating obligations. You cannot only take out of the system you must also put in.

SOUNDBITE (English), Edward SCICLUNA, Minister of Finance of Malta, I think at the moment the imbalances in the Euro zone are enormous. To try to raise solutions and have to address the moral hazard issue is asking too much at this point. Before at least we have seen some of the solutions but there is an element of moral hazards like saying the SRF working through over the years. Then we can go to the next step.

SOUNDBITE (English), Pierre GRAMEGNA, Minister of Finance of Luxembourg, The fiscal capacity subject is a very ambitious one and we need ambitious project. The discussion here has shown that there are so many elements that should be covered by the fiscal capacity that it is probably very difficult to agree upon that. I think the best approach is to find the solidarity, where do we have common points and the debate here and the comments show such divergence views on what should be done with these fiscal capacities.

SOUNDBITE (English), Pier Carlo PADOAN, Minister of Finance of Italy, Do we need money to do structural reforms? No, we do not but money helps. The number of different reasons why there is a case are first of all as we all know reforms deliver benefits on the medium term. Second, there might be the case, and certainly I have the case coming from my own country in which structural reforms impact, are enhance in the medium term by additional fiscual stimulus and this has to do with the combination of the Jobs Act, which is a major labour market reform and unemployment benefits which end up generating a large number contracts that are changing the structure of the labour market.