“We have seen EU government debt levels ballooning over the past couple of months. It is time for the European Commission and EU Finance Ministers to come up with a convincing strategy

on how to turn off the tap without choking off the recovery”, said Markus Ferber MEP, EPP Group Spokesman on Economic Affairs, in connection with the meetings in the Eurogroup and the EU Economy and Finance Ministers (ECOFIN) yesterday and today.

“The Commission’s recent uninspiring proposal is just a mere continuation of the status quo. It seems as if Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, who is supposedly in charge of safeguarding the stability of the Euro, is content with gradually removing the foundation of the Stability and Growth Pact. If Gentiloni gets his way, the Stability and Growth Pact will probably never be reinstated. The pandemic seems to be the perfect pretext for all those who wanted to get rid of the EU’s fiscal rules anyway.”

“We need to have an honest discussion about how a return to a new normal can look like. We can discuss a reform of the Stability and Growth Pact and the adequacy of its key metrics and thresholds. But any reform of the fiscal rules must put the stability of the single currency at its centre. Unfortunately, Commissioner Gentiloni’s main concern seems to be to add more exemptions to a legal framework that already has more exceptions than rules”, Ferber concluded.