Following the Commission's White Paper on the Future of Europe presented on 1 March, the Commission has now set out possible ways forward for deepening Europe's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). The reflection paper published on 31 May builds on the Five Presidents' Report of June 2015 and is intended both to stimulate the debate on the Economic and Monetary Union and to help reach a shared vision of its future design. Paying due attention to the debates in Member States and to the views of other EU institutions, the paper sets out concrete steps that could be taken by the European elections in 2019, as well as a series of options for the following years, when the architecture of the EMU would be completed. Completing the EMU is not an end in itself, but is needed to provide jobs, growth, social fairness, economic convergence and financial stability. Moving ahead would involve completing a genuine Financial Union, achieving a more integrated Economic and Fiscal Union, and anchoring democratic accountability and strengthening euro area institutions.

“The time has come to complete the journey we started at Maastricht towards a genuine economic and monetary union, with strong institutions and democratic accountability.”

President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, and President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, represented the EU at this year's G7 summit on 26-27 May. The Summit was hosted by Italy, which holds the rotating G7 presidency for 2017. Discussions over the two days of the Summit focused on a wide range of issues, including the safety and security of citizens, trade, the global economy, climate change and foreign affairs – all of which are at the forefront of the EU’s agenda. G7 Leaders agreed that technological change and globalisation have made a fundamental contribution to raising living standards across the world over recent decades, but that the benefits have not been shared widely enough, contributing to inequalities in many countries. This is also reflected in the Commission's Reflection Paper on Harnessing Globalisation. In the margins of the summit, President Juncker met with Japanese Prime Minister Abe to discuss the next steps in the EU’s negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement with Japan.

The Commission has welcomed the agreement reached on 23 May by Member States on new measures to help resolve double taxation problems for all citizens and businesses in the EU. Proposed by the Commission only seven months ago, the new rules will allow businesses and citizens to reduce double taxation, one of the biggest obstacles to the functioning of the Single Market. In corporate taxation alone, there are currently around 900 double taxation disputes in the EU estimated to be worth EUR 10.5 billion in tax revenues. The new rules regarding dispute resolution will ensure that when income is double taxed, taxpayers will have a clear, quick and definitive process for resolving the issue, either through agreement by the Member States concerned or through a decision of an advisory commission. Citizens and small companies will benefit from an even further simplified procedure. Once the European Parliament has issued its opinion, the new rules will be formally adopted by the Council and will apply to double taxation disputes from 1 July 2019. 

The Commission welcomed the formal adoption on 29 May of new EU rules to prevent tax avoidance via non-EU countries. The agreed rules will stop companies from escaping tax by exploiting the mismatches between Member States’ and non-EU countries’ tax systems (“hybrid mismatches”). The new rules complete the Anti Tax Avoidance Directive (ATAD), which ensures that binding and robust anti-abuse measures are applied throughout the Single Market. They will come into force on 1 January 2020, with a longer phasing-in period of 2022 for one provision (Art. 9a). The rules build on the solid anti-avoidance safeguards initiated by the Juncker Commission and agreed upon at the EU level, including a host of new tax transparency rules. Moreover, the Council and the European Parliament are currently negotiating other important proposals to prevent tax abuse, such as public country-by-country reporting, stronger Anti-Money Laundering provisions and tighter good governance rules for EU funds.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK), the Polish development bank, signed an agreement on 24 May to establish an Investment Platform that will provide some PLN 2.1 billion (approx. EUR 496 million) through 2021 to finance the construction and retrofitting of social and/or affordable housing units, as well as support the construction of associated infrastructure such as roads, drainage, utilities and recreational facilities in different municipalities across Poland. The platform is backed by the Juncker’s Commission’s Investment Plan for Europe, the so-called "Juncker Plan". Meanwhile, the European Investment Fund (EIF) along with partners Epiqus, a fund manager dedicated to investments with a social impact, and the Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, announced on 2 June that it will invest EUR 10 million in a social impact bond scheme, the first of its kind in Europe, to support the integration of between 2,500 and 3,700 migrants and refugees into the Finnish labour market through the provision of training and job-matching assistance.

Euro area annual inflation is expected to be 1.4% in May 2017, down from 1.9% in April 2017, according to a flash estimate from Eurostat, the statistical office of the EU. Looking at the main components of euro area inflation, energy is expected to have the highest annual rate in May (4.6%, compared with 7.6% in April), followed by food, alcohol & tobacco (1.5%, stable compared with April), services (1.3%, compared with 1.8% in April) and non-energy industrial goods (0.3%, stable compared with April).

The EU economic and financial landscape – and economic governance – continues to evolve in 2017. The ECFIN website not only presents the current developments and specific initiatives of the European Commission on economic and financial affairs. It also provides you a wide set of databases, an extensive archive of economic publications and detailed documentation relating to many important policies, such as those based on the Stability and Growth Pact, the Macroeconomic Imbalance procedure, or macro-financial assistance for non-EU partner countries. We would like to kindly ask you to let us know your views and suggestions. How could the website be improved? Thank you for sharing your thoughts by spending just a few minutes to answer the online questionnaire. We appreciate your feedback.