Event Review: EU Stability and Growth Pact

Last Wednesday, 29th November, we were pleased to host the panel discussion “EU Stability and Growth Pact: EU budget and the municipal and local economic setting in Europe” in cooperation with Deutscher Städte- und Gemeindebund and Finanzgruppe Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband in the European Parliament. The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) aims at promoting economic stability across the European Union by reducing budget deficits and debt-to-GDP ratios. In April of this year, the European Commission has set out a new fiscal governance proposal that is expected to be implemented in the coming year. This proposal entails various new approaches such as a country-by-country debt sustainability analysis. The above-mentioned developments served as an opportunity to analyze said proposal and to deliberate about possible refinements. Consequently, the fruitful discussion amongst the 10 distinguished speakers and the engaged audience underlined that the SGP must be more assertive and that a further increase in debt within the member states must be prevented. Nevertheless, it was agreed that reducing debt must not prevent the urgently needed investments into the future of the European market economies. It was a particular honour to have MEP Niclas Herbst with us who not only provided valuable insights from the Parliament’s perspective but also served as a moderator. Moreover, Tim Peter from our Berlin office presented his analysis of the Commission’s fiscal governance proposal and highlighted that it must be questioned whether said proposal will be efficient in tackling the issues at hand.