The EU in brief

The Commission re-launches governance and eurobondsStrong budgetary governance and a watertight system of monitoring and surveillance backed up by credible EU institutions. On November 23 Commission President Josè Manuel Barroso presented a package of proposals to further strengthen euro area governance, safeguard future financial stability and boost growth and employment. “Member States need to embrace deeper integration for the euro area”, Barroso underlined. The measure package includes the 2012 Annual Growth Survey, which sets out the EU’s priorities for the next 12 months in terms of budgetary policies; two proposed regulations strengthening economic surveillance and budgetary policies in euro area Member States; the Green Paper on Stability Bonds. “President Barroso said: “To return to growth, Member States need to raise their game when it comes to implementing their commitments to structural reforms, as well as embrace deeper integration for the euro area”. “The goals driving this package – economic growth, financial stability, budgetary discipline – are linked to each other. We need all of them if we are to move beyond the current emergency towards a Europe in which solidarity is balanced by strengthened responsibility”. The Annual Growth Survey (AGS) outlines five priorities. These are: pursuing differentiated growth-friendly fiscal consolidation; restoring normal lending to the economy; promoting growth and competitiveness for today and tomorrow; tackling unemployment and the social consequences of the crisis; modernising public administration. It provides the tools for the second European Semester of economic governance. The European Council on 9 December is expected to take note, but the AGS is above all the Commission’s key input into the Spring European Council on 1-2 March 2012. The proposed regulations on strengthening surveillance of euro area countries have been agreed as part of the ‘Six Pack’, namely the legislative proposals due to be adopted in mid December. Through the Green Paper on Stability Bonds “the Commission is taking forward in a structured way the important debate on the joint issuance of debt in the euro area”. By putting forward three options for such Stability Bonds and providing a detailed analysis of their financial and legal implications, the Commission is setting out a clear timeline for the next steps.EU citizens support helping poor countries84% of respondents to a new Eurobarometer survey support “development aid to help people across the world out of poverty”. The majority of EU citizens (84%) also support the strong focus of EU aid “on good governance and human rights in developing countries”. According to the same survey, “Europeans are ready to actively participate in helping the poor – half of EU citizens are willing to pay more for their daily shopping (e.g. for fair trade products), if they know that this would benefit developing countries. Commenting on the findings of the Eurobarometer survey on November 23 Andris Piebalgs, EU Commissioner for Development, said: “”Europeans are sending a clear message to politicians in the EU and beyond: even in times of economic hardship, they remain firmly committed to helping others out of poverty”. This generosity has to be matched by political responsibility. We have to be more efficient and transparent to show the results of our aid and prove that the funds make a real difference”. Piebalgs said that next week’s high-level forum on aid effectiveness in Busan, South Korea will be “a key opportunity to look at how we can make our aid even more effective”. The Eurobarometer survey – conducted past September with interviews on 27 thousand EU citizens aged 15 or over – shows that “young people of Europe (aged 15-24) voiced their strong support for development policy”, 41% think that helping poor people is “very important”, in comparison to 35% of people above 40 years of age. 42% believe that “effectiveness of aid can mainly be increased by working more closely with developing countries themselves” 62% of European citizens are in favour of increasing development aid to at least 0.7% of EU Gross National Income by 2015. 70% think of sub-Saharan Africa as the part of the world most in need of aid to fight poverty, followed by Middle East and North Africa (33%).