"The euro area is built on strong bonds of trust, underpinned by rules that are the same for everybody. It is our job and duty to uphold common interest and mutual commitments taken by the member countries.”
News
On 23 October, the Commission requested that Italy submit a revised draft budgetary plan within three weeks.
The EU economic and financial landscape – and especially economic governance – has evolved dramatically since the first issue of ECFIN e-news was published in December 2009.
New figures released by the European Commission on 27 September show that customs authorities detained over 31 million fake and counterfeit products at the EU's external border with a street value of over EUR 580 million.
In a decision on 4 October, Advocate General Wathelet has proposed that the European Court of Justice should rule that the decision of the European Central Bank (ECB) establishing a programme for the purchase of government bonds on secondary markets is valid.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) announced on 5 October that it will support the construction of the Northwester wind farm off the Belgian coast with a loan of EUR 210 million.
European Commission staff, in liaison with staff from the European Central Bank, visited Madrid from 4 to 5 October for the tenth post-programme mission to Spain.
At their meeting on 2 October, EU finance ministers listened to a proposal from the Commission that would strengthen the role of the European Banking Authority in supervising EU financial institutions, so as to better address money laundering and terrorist financing.
“20 years after its creation the euro is the second most used currency in the world. Reinforcing its international role is not a new topic for the Eurogroup but there are good reasons to look at this today with renewed ambition.”
Finance ministers from the 27 EU Member States discussed the reform of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) at a meeting of the Eurogroup on 1 October.
Agenda
The EU economic and financial landscape – and especially economic governance – has evolved dramatically since the first issue of ECFIN e-news was published in December 2009.
modernisation of the World Trade Organisation The EU's approach to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) reform outlined in a document published on 18 September was presented to EU partners in Geneva on 20 September during a meeting on that subject convened by Canada.
On 14 September, the Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Ukraine in Kyiv for Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) of up to EUR 1 billion in the form of medium- and long-term loans.
Staff from the European Commission, in liaison with staff from the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, visited Athens from 10-14 September for the first post-programme mission to Greece.
“…a loss of EUR 150 billion per year for national budgets remains unacceptable, especially when EUR 50 billion of this is lining the pockets of criminals, fraudsters and probably even terrorists…I urge Member States to move forward on the definitive VAT system before the European Parliament elections in 2019.”
EU countries lost almost EUR 150 billion in Value-Added Tax (VAT) revenues in 2016, according to a new Commission study published on 21 September.
State of the Union | 2018
The EU economic and financial landscape – and especially economic governance – has evolved dramatically since the first issue of ECFIN e-news was published in December 2009.