Remarks by Paschal Donohoe following the Eurogroup meeting of 4 November 2024
It is with a sense of sadness that I take the podium today, as this will likely be the last time I participate in this event with Paolo Gentiloni present. I just want to use this public occasion to say how lucky I have been to work with a leader and a person of the wisdom and of the skill of Paolo. And if I look at all that we have overcome in the last number of years, a big part of how we have overcome itmust have been the political leadership and skill of Commissioner Gentiloni. So it’s been such a privilege and I just wish you every success in the future. And if you’re still here in December, dear Paolo, I’m willing to say this all over again – thank you for all you’ve done.
We opened up the Eurogroup meeting with a discussion on the macroeconomic developments in the euro area. This was informed by the discussion that we had recently in the IMF and World Bank meetings. Overall, we pointed to the progress that we have made in getting inflation down; but also to the fact that while we’re all trying to reduce borrowing, normalise budget policy, we still need to find ways of identifying the protection of capital investment in our future.
We also thanked and recognised the Commission and Giancarlo Giorgetti, the Finance Minister of Italy, for all the excellent work with regard to the extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans initiative for Ukraine that had a major development at the G7 meeting in Washington.
We then heard from our two banking regulators, the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM) and the Single Resolution Board (SRB). It’s a decade now since the establishment of the SSM, and the Single Resolution Board, has been with us now also for some time. They gave us a cautiously positive update on the stability of the financial sector, but they again pointed to the progress that we have to make. The ratification of the ESM treaty and also the conclusion of the work in relation to the crisis management framework that will be moving into trilogues. We hope that both of those avenues can reach a successful conclusion to move forward the project of Banking Union.
After this, we turned to competitiveness. We have issued a statement on competitiveness giving the views of finance ministers on an array of topics that will contribute to the future growth of the European Union. A quick highlight on the points that we make with regard to energy, to trade, our view on the need to protect the single market, our identification of the importance of public financing, and the role that it could play with the development and delivery of European public goods. And also a reaffirmation regarding the importance of capital markets.
The meeting concluded with a look at where we are on our work on Capital Markets Union (CMU). We have now agreed a structure regarding how the Eurogroup will continue to engage in the implementation of our statement on CMU in the months and years ahead. This isn’t about reporting, it’s about action. But if we don’t monitor what’s happening, action won’t be taken in the way we want. We also discussed today a report on the work that was happening in different member states, highlighting, again, the progress that we can make in some areas with regard to securitisation and the retail participation of our citizens in CMU.
One last update from our meeting – my intention to extend an invitation to the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, to attend our December Eurogroup meeting. This is part of the format that we established in our engagement with other G7 partners, and I look forward to being able to do the same with the Chancellor in a few weeks’ time.
