BRUSSELS (MNI) – Finance ministers from across the European Union
will reach a deal to better enforce rules limiting debt levels and
impose sanctions on those countries that break the rules, Belgian
finance minister Didier Reynders said on Tuesday.
The EU’s current rules, set out in the Stability and Growth Pact,
require EU member states to limit their budget deficits to below 3% of
their gross domestic product and their debt levels to 60% of GDP.
Many countries are currently in breach of these rules, leading
Europe’s policymakers to search for new ways to impose them. Two of the
main proposals include putting more emphasis on the 60% debt level as a
benchmark and imposing political and economic sanctions on violators.
“I am sure that it is possible to reach a deal on both,” Reynders
— who will chair an informal meeting of EU finance ministers and
central bankers in Brussels later this week — said.
“There is an agreement of sorts to go to sanctions,” he told
reporters at a conference organized by think tank Eurofi in Brussels.
“Of course we need to give more power to the Commission,” Reynders
added.
The Belgian finance minister said his country is fully funded in
terms of debt this year and has begun raising money for 2011.
“We don’t see any difficulty in going to the market at the moment,”
he said.
–Brussels: 0032 487 (0) 32 803 665, echarlton@marketnews.com
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