Meeting on 21 March, EU finance ministers discussed how to boost the implementation of country-specific recommendations under the European Semester, the EU’s annual policy monitoring process. Under the 2017 European Semester, the Commission on 22 February presented country reports on the economic situation in the Member States and in-depth reviews for 13 Member States under the annual Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure. The ministers noted that a significant proportion of country-specific recommendations are not fully implemented by the Member States. This gave rise to an exchange of views on how these experiences have impacted on the business environment. The discussion focused on three aspects: the role of public administration, access to finance and product market regulation. Ministers also discussed a proposal that would authorise non-standard VAT rates for electronic publications and a proposal that would allow for a generalised but temporary reversal of liability as a means of preventing VAT fraud.