Discussions kick off among MEPs and national MPs on economic governance

The opening, chaired by Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee Chair Irene Tinagli (S&D, IT), saw interventions from top European politicians leading the implementation of economic governance and its reforms.

Ms Tinagli highlighted the areas where progress is most pressing and on which the European Parliament is working, including completing the banking union and the capital markets union, reforming the architecture of economic governance and more particularly, making economic governance more democratically accountable.

Commission Executive Vice-President Dombrovskis and Commissioner Gentiloni presented the institution’s plans to review the architecture of economic governance. Eurogroup President Centeno laid out what finance ministers would be prioritising in the coming months. Zdravko Marić, the current ECOFIN chair, presented the priorities of the Croatian Presidency of the Council.

Fabio Panetta, Executive Board member of the ECB also presented the Eurozone’s monetary outlook and described the actions that the ECB still deems necessary to complete the economic and monetary union (EMU).

You can watch the opening debate here.

The meeting will continue on Tuesday and Wednesday with debates among parliamentarians on taxation, financial services as well as the fight against poverty and the EU long-term budget (MFF).

EP President David Sassoli will open the plenary debate on Wednesday morning on climate change and the role that EU economic, budgetary and social policies can play in this regard.

All information on the gathering can be found here, including all links to the different webstreams of the sessions taking place between Tuesday and Wednesday. The programme is here.

Background

The European Parliamentary Week, as the gathering is known, brings together Parliamentarians from across the EU, candidate and observer countries to discuss economic, budgetary and social matters. It consists of the European Semester Conference and the Interparliamentary Conference on Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance in the European Union.

The aim is to increase democratic oversight of EU economic governance and provides an opportunity to exchange information on best practices in implementing the Semester cycles.