HELSINKI - European Union finance ministers backed on Saturday a simplification of the EU’s fiscal rules to make them more transparent and predictable, but more work is needed before any changes are agreed, a senior European Commission official said.
“It is certainly an option to explore and there was relatively good acceptance of this option,” Dombrovskis told a news conference after informal talks in Helsinki. Dombrovskis said the Commission, the guardian of EU laws, would have to approach a revision of EU rules cautiously to avoid a situation where laws are opened for review, but cannot be closed again for lack of agreement on their new shape.
After modifications in 2005, 2011 and 2013, the rules have become so complex that the Commission each year publishes an almost 100-page handbook to explain how they work, along with many exemptions and exceptions. Under the EFB proposal countries that have debt above 60% would have to keep net government primary spending, which is expenditure less interest payments on public debt, at or below the rate of the economy’s potential GDP growth, which is the rate of growth that does not trigger higher inflation.
The existing rules cap the headline budget deficit at 3% of GDP and oblige governments every year to cut their structural deficit, the budget gap excluding one-off revenues and spending and the effects of the business cycle, until balance or surplus.
Never seen so many white people before, supposedly representing 27 different nations.
Like they're smart. If they were, the EU would have money that came from itself!