MNI BRIEF: Spain Presidency Aims For Oct Fiscal Rules Proposal

The Spanish Presidency of the European Union is “rolling up its sleeves” and intensifying work at the political and technical level in order to get a deal on fiscal rules reform by the end of this year, an official said Thursday. Spain's aim was to make a new reform proposal by the October Ecofin meeting, the official said, noting that talks at the technical level would continue through August to try and secure this, underlining the importance.

The presidency has identified four key ‘building blocks’ for the construction of a landing zone for reform of the fiscal rules in an “issues paper” which will be discussed by EU finance ministers at their meeting on Friday: institutional balance; safeguards; fiscal space and incentives for economic and structural reforms and enforcement.

The blocks cover the main controversial aspects of the reform talks so far, such as the differences between countries on the role of the Commission to bilaterally negotiate debt deals with member states, how to ensure states do enough consolidation without this becoming procyclical, addressing issues raised by countries which do not have fiscal space and how to incentivise investment and reforms as well as questions around how excessive deficit procedures might be triggered in future.

The comments are clearly aimed at addressing concerns that the Spanish Presidency of the EU may be distracted by the upcoming general election.