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Let me make couple of remarks on the economy and then go to today's agenda.
Most
of us are just back from the Washington IMF meetings therefore the
energy level was very low, everyone was jet lagged which made my life a
lot easier. The low energy level would also go for the world economy,
where trade is slow and risks are in international markets.
Interestingly enough, the last years that I've been to the IMF Europe
and Eurozone is always considered a risk. But at the moment the growth
in the Eurozone is above average of the developed countries and even
higher than in the US. So it was, from the Eurozone prospective, quite a
change in terms of the debate.
It's
fair to say that the Eurozone is more resilient now. The policies and
reforms are paying off. Growth is continuing and the growth rate for the
Eurozone had actually been upgraded a slight 0.1 percentage point by
the IMF, so we're still going in the right direction. It says in my text
"all but one of our economies" have returned to growth, but I believe
also Greece has now had three consecutive quarters of growth. So that's
where we are.
Today we first of all had a discussion on Greece.
We
heard from the four institutions on the completion of the
implementation of the 15 open milestones which enables us all to close
the first review. Important reforms have been undertaken on pensions,
energy sector, bank governance, as well as on the setting up of the
privatisation fund and the revenue agency. We have issued a statement on
that so I can be brief.
This progress enables the ESM to disburse EUR 1.1 bn remaining under the second tranche.
There
has also been substantial progress on arrears clearance in July and
August, which is essential to strengthen the economic recovery.
Technical work will continue to gather the September data. This always
takes a number of weeks to complete these data, so that cannot be
helped, it cannot be done faster. We hope and presume that before the
end of October those data are available. They will then be assessed by
the institutions and on that basis the ESM Board of Directors could
decide on the disbursement of EUR 1.7 bn. So this is specifically for
the clearance of arrears. So that's also good news.
We will now focus on the second review, which we expect to be completed swiftly and we will come back to that in next meetings.
Next on our agenda was one of the thematic discussions on growth and jobs. This time we looked at long-term healthcare and long-term care, looked at public expenditures and how to secure fiscal sustainability.
This
is of course an important issue for our countries given our ageing
societies. High government debt, and the budgetary pressures posed by
population ageing make the sustainability of health systems a matter of
common concern. On the basis of a report done by the Commission, we
discussed where we are, what the challenges are and what good practices
we have.
Expenditure
projections indicate substantial risks and financial challenges in
health systems, looking at the horizon 2060, and we should be taking
steps now to avert those risks. We looked at various policy options and
will further investigate how best to take this work forward. This issue
will also be tomorrow on the Ecofin agenda.
Finally
on our agenda we took stock of current fiscal issues. Work progresses
on some adjustments regarding the procedural aspects of draft budgetary
plans, how to deal with those, and also we were updated by the
Commission on the ongoing structured dialogue with the European
Parliament. This is about the suspension of structural funds for Spain
and Portugal. Finally we have planned to discuss draft budgetary plans,
which will be coming in the coming days at the Commission, to discuss
those on the 5th of December in the Eurogroup. That's all from me.
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