Dick Spring
Question:58 Mr. Spring asked the Minister for Finance if he will report on the most recent meeting of the Economic Policy Committee of the European Union; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4689/01]
Written Answers. - ECOFIN Council.
There are two official level committees which help prepare items for meetings of European Economic and Finance Ministers, ECOFIN. The Economic and Financial Committee, EFC, formerly the Monetary Committee, assists in the preparation of ECOFIN agendas and focuses its attention on economic, budgetary and financial issues. The Economic Policy Committee, EPC, focuses on more medium and long-term economic reform issues.
The Deputy has asked about the most recent meeting of the EPC. The agenda for the meeting of Economic Policy Committee attended by an official of my Department on 7 February 2001 consisted of the following issues: under the heading, Draft EPC Annual Report on Structural Reforms, three documents were discussed. They were – key messages from the 2001 country examinations, first draft of the full report, and a Commission document entitled, Economic Reform: report on the functioning of Community Product and Capital Market. This was followed by a presentation from the chairman of the internal market council working group, Horizontal Question, of that group's work in the framework of the Cardiff process and its contribution to the 2001 broad economic policy guidelines, BEPGs.
There was also a preparation of the orientation debate at ECOFIN on the 2001 Broad Economic Policy Guidelines. This discussion included a note from the Commission entitled, Orientation debate on the 2001 Broad Economic Policy Guidelines, as well as a joint contribution from the Employment Committee and the Social Protection Committee for the BEPGs.
The final item on the agenda was a report from the chairman on the work of the EPC working group on potential output and output gaps.
As the Deputy will appreciate, the above is a brief summary of the EPC's discussions and conclusions. I draw the attention of the Deputy to the Economic Policy Committee's recently launched public information website, which contains a wide range of the finalised reports of the committee on a variety of issues. The website can be accessed at the following address: http://europa.eu.int/ comm/economy– finance/epc/ index–en.htm.