The EU Commission issued its autumn economic package Wednesday, aiming to steer EU economies into calmer waters after the COVID pandemic with policy guidance for Europe’s collective recovery. The Commission’s autumn economic policy package includes Opinions on draft country budgetary plans (DBPs) for 2021 and policy recommendations for the euro area. EC vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis urged the EU Member States to set out “ambitious policy agendas in their recovery and resilience plans, to the benefit of all.”
The assessment finds that DBPs are overall in line with Council recommendations of 20 July 2020. Most of the measures support economic activity against the background of considerable uncertainty. Some measures set out in the Draft Budgetary Plans of France, Italy, Lithuania and Slovakia do not appear to be temporary or matched by offsetting measures. Lithuania has submitted its Draft Budgetary Plan based on a no-policy-change scenario and is invited to submit an updated Draft Budgetary Plan.
For Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, given the level of their government debt and high sustainability challenges in the medium-term before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to ensure that, when taking supporting budgetary measures, fiscal sustainability in the medium-term is preserved.
Romania has been under the excessive deficit procedure (EDP) since April 2020 due to the breach of the Treaty deficit threshold in 2019. In light of the continued high uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Commission considers that no decision on further steps in Romania’s excessive deficit procedure should be taken at this juncture. It will reassess Romania’s budgetary situation in spring 2021.
Source: EUbusiness
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