Hearing of Paolo GENTILONI, Commissioner-designate for Economy, is heard by the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) in association with the Committee on Budgets (BUDG) and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL) of the European Parliament in Brussels to test his general competences, European commitment and specific expertise related to his portfolio. Statements by Ernest URTASUN (Greens/ALE, ES), Raffaele FITTO (ECR, IT), Siegfried MUREȘAN (EPP, RO) and Paolo GENTILONI, Commissioner-designate for Economy.

Brussels

Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

FITTO, Raffaele (ECR, IT)

Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs

Committee on Budgets

MUREŞAN, Siegfried (EPP, RO)

GENTILONI, Paolo (IT, EC)

URTASUN, Ernest (Greens/EFA, ES)

hearing of Commissioners

2019 Commissioners' hearings (T)

hearing of Paolo GENTILONI 2019 (T)

Hearing of Paolo GENTILONI, Commissioner-designate, Economy: extracts from the hearing (2/2)

SOUNDBITE (Spanish), Ernest URTASUN (Greens/ALE, ES), What do you think we can ensure that we do not exacerbate imbalances in the housing market as a result of the way we implement the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP)?

SOUNDBITE (English), Paolo GENTILONI, Commissioner-designate, Economy, The analysis of macro imbalances I think was very helpful because it was useful to give both the Commission and Member States guidelines, ideas, suggestions not only on the traditional financial issues but on others issues that are the private debt, the housing market as you were saying, the health situation. These conditions are fundamental and I think that we should work on strengthening them in the near future.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Raffaele FITTO (ECR, IT), Do not you think that it will much better in terms of flexibility to intervene in order to avoid that in a number of different countries flexibility used within the stability rules  to keep the public expenditure under control and not delivering on the final objectives?

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Paolo GENTILONI, Commissioner-designate, Economy, <p>It is clear that we should focus on investments and on structural reforms because that is what drives growth in our economy. If we look at the balance sheet of recent years I think that the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) has avoided major worst economic crisis and deficit levels but it has not been successful in driving debt levels or facilitating growth in investments. Hence, the current revision should echo these objectives. </p>

SOUNDBITE (English), Siegfried MURE&#536;AN (EPP, RO), After Brexit we will need additional resources to finance our current priorities and our new priorities. This is why the discussion about own resources of the EU is more important than ever. 

SOUNDBITE (English), Paolo GENTILONI, Commissioner-designate, Economy, I do not see immediate consequences of our decisions and reform on VAT on the own resources. As far as the new own resources tool is concerned the potential of own resources coming from taxation, both on the so-called carbon border tax and on the Common Corporate Tax Base (CCCTB), are something that we have to work svery eriously, if we want them at the beginning of the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF), because It is not evident that this contribution could be already there in next month.