In the course of its plenary session last week (Strasbourg, 10-14 March), the European Parliament approved a Report and a “Resolution on the annual assessment in the implementation of the stability and convergence programmes”, presented by Italian MEP Bruno Trentin. The stability and convergence programmes are the instruments of economic and financial planning and activity that EU member states present to the Commission in conformity with the Stability and Growth Pact and with the criteria laid down at Maastricht for membership of and participation in the Euro area. Starting out from the consideration that the Commission’s growth forecasts for the year in course have turned out to be “too optimistic” due, not least, to the global economic slowdown, the inability of the market to create new and permanent jobs and the international political crisis the document emphasizes the importance of balanced and carefully controlled budgets “for the long-term economic development” of the EU. The EP “applauds the highly satisfactory implementation of the stability and convergence programmes in the majority of member states”, and invites the Fifteen to apply the Stability and Growth Pact “in a flexible manner”, while maintaining unaltered the ceiling of 60% for public debt and the threshold of 3% for inflation. In the view of MEPs, therefore, there’s no need to modify the rules of the Pact. The Strasbourg Assembly shares the Commission’s view that “the Lisbon Strategy and the structural reforms at the level of member states represent the best response to the slowdown of the economy”; but this Strategy needs to be backed up with bigger public and private investments in such key sectors as research, training, innovation and small and medium businesses. Emphasizing the efforts made by the Executive and by the Convention to reinforce individual national budgetary policies at the European level, the Resolution confirms the majority opinion within the EP according to which “recommendations and advance warnings [for violations or threatened violations of the rules of the Pact] should be issued under the exclusive responsibility of the Commission and that the Council should not have the right to vote on them”.
