Member States of the EU must take advantage of favorable conditions developing as a result of economic recovery, structural reforms, encourage investment and strengthen public finances, calls on the recommendations of the European Commission, published on Monday, may 22.
“The economic situation is favorable, and we must use this chance to give Europe’s economies more competitive, sustainability and innovation. Should give priority to reforms that will make economic growth more inclusive and provide new dynamic performance,” – said at a press conference in Brussels, the European Commission Vice President for Euro and social dialogue Valdis Dombrovskis, presenting to the journalists the findings of the so-called spring “European semester” for 2017.
The recommendations state that, although the priorities in different EU countries differ, it is important that additional effort was focused “to a more inclusive, robust and sustainable economic growth.”
Recommendations for the EU in 2017 present economic guidelines for member States for the next 12 and 18 months.
They noted that the European economy has proven its resilience to serious difficulties. Economic growth in the EU and in the Euro area reached about 2% in 2016, the state of public finances is improving, and about 233 million people in the EU have jobs, the European Commission called a “historic figure”.
The unemployment rate in the EU, the lowest since 2009, while the volume of investment exceeds in some member States that existed before the crisis, in particular through the European investment plan, called the “Juncker plan”.
However, the authors acknowledge the recommendations of slow productivity growth and the effects of the crisis still continued to plague the economy, as well as uncertainty stemming mainly from external factors.
Presented on Monday a package of recommendations for developing insights winter “European semester”, adopted in February, including the procedure of macroeconomic imbalance.
With regard to Cyprus, Italy and Portugalexperiencing excessive macroeconomic imbalances, the European Commission came to the conclusion that there is no data to move to the next stage of the procedure, as these three countries fully implement the reforms that they have been prescribed in the previous recommendations.
In the whole EU, according to Brussels, are expected to reduce the budget deficit to 1.4% of GDP in the current year after a peak at 6.1% of GDP in 2010.
The European Commission has adopted a number of measures in the framework of the stability Pact and economic growth. It is recommended to close the procedure on excessive budget deficit against Croatia and Portugal, said at a press conference, a member of the EC for economy and Finance Pierre Moscovici, calling it good news.
The Executive Board, the EU also adopted the reports on Belgium and Finland, which analyse compliance with the criterion of public debt. In both cases it is concluded that this criterion is met, although it put forward recommendations for necessary additional measures.
Regarding Italy, the European Commission confirmed that additional budget measures imposed on the country by 2017, was adopted, and at this stage does not require the other to comply with the debt criterion.
The materials also contains a warning on the budget settlement in Romania: the EU Council recommendation to make this country a special instruction on 2017 for the implementation of necessary measures.
We will remind, the European Union representative for foreign policy Federica Mogherini believes that the economic situation in Russia does not allow to call this country a superpower.
