MNI BRIEF: Germany’s Lindner Holds Firm On Fiscal Safeguards

German Finance Minister Christian Lindner doubled down on demands for strict safeguards to ensure EU states reduce their debt and deficits over coming years as talks on EU fiscal rules reform get underway in Luxembourg today and continue Tuesday.

“We need numerical benchmarks and safeguards,” Lindner told reporters on his arrival at the meeting of EU finance ministers, adding thet there needed to be a decline in deficits and debt GDP ratios. He noted that the IMF had given EU finance ministers “strong advice at the IMF-World Bank meeting in Marrakesh “to build fiscal buffers again.”

“We are standing ready to find a compromise, but for the credibility of member states and the monetary union in particular it would be worse if there were fiscal rules which do not lead to a decline in debt and deficits,” he said. (MNI:Higher Yields Making EU Fiscal Rules Deal Harder-Officials)

Meanwhile, Spanish Economy Minister and Deputy PM Nadia Calvino, who will chair the EU's talks on fiscal rules, said she was seeking to impart a greater momentum to the talks so that by the time of the Nov 9 ECOFIN meeting the talks could enter their final phase on the basis of a legal text.