Voorzitter eurogroep ziet belangrijke rol Europees Parlement voor economisch herstel (en)

Economic governance reform can only be undertaken by closely involving the European Parliament, Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker told Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee on Monday. "It is self evident and, moreover, the Treaty also requires, that Parliament be on an equal footing with Member States", he said, adding that Parliament must help to bring "common sense" back into the debate and work on the legislation.

MEPs, who share power with Council in hammering out the new rules for the EU's economic governance, pointed out that "a backroom deal could not be an option" for an issue which would have such wide ramifications for all Europeans.

Sanctions

"Will economic sanctions not place an underperforming economy in a worse situation than ever?" asked Philippe Lamberts (Greens/EFA, BE).  Mr Juncker replied that if the sanctions policy were developed in a way such that it were easy to use, Member States would be wary of it and this would lead them to take action in time to avoid the sanctions. Earlier on, Mr Juncker had criticised the decision taken by EU Member States to make sanctions more difficult to deploy than  the Commission had foreseen in its earlier proposals.

Pooling public debt

Sylvie Goulard (ALDE, FR), suggested that a system for pooling some EU public debt could be constructed as an instrument to create incentives to keep debt below the stability and growth pact criteria and disincentives to exceed public debt limits.  She added that this idea should already be considered in work being done by the Council and the Parliament on the Commission's economic governance proposals.

Member State default system

"Would a default system, allowing the private sector to carry some of the cost of public debt not be useful in the Eurozone crisis resolution mechanism?" asked Astrid Lulling (EPP, LU).  Mr Juncker accepted this as a possibility, but insisted that this should not be considered as the be all and end all of any crisis resolution model to be developed.

Imbalances

Udo Bullman (S&D, DE), stressed the need to address trading surpluses and deficits among Member States at European level, saying that the problem should be a common one.

Global rules

Vicky Ford (ECR, UK), asked how important was it to have the Basel rules on banking implemented to the same degree across the world.  "I very much hope that countries will comply with the latest set of Basel rules more fully and quickly than they have done previously", said Mr Juncker, adding that this was a central issue to take up with the United States.

Next step in the legislative package

MEPs working on the governance legislative package are expected to finalise their draft reports by December and to table them officially in the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee in January.