Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin
Question:13 Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin asked the Minister for Finance if he will report on his participation in the European Council of Finance Ministers meeting of 2 June. [18720/04]
View answerWednesday, 23 June 2004
Questions (31)
Written answers
On 2 June I chaired the last meeting of the ECOFIN Council of the Irish Presidency in Luxembourg. As in the Presidency generally, the meeting made good progress on the agenda items.
The Ministers agreed their report on the updated broad economic policy guidelines for member states that was endorsed by the European Council last week. The guidelines emphasise the continuing importance of implementing the Lisbon agenda of structural reforms. The priorities stressed are policies to promote growth and stability, reforms to create more and better jobs and strengthening the long-term sustainability of public finances.
Under the Stability and Growth Pact, ECOFIN decided that an excessive deficit exists in the Netherlands. The Council issued a recommendation calling on the Netherlands to implement corrective measures.
The Status Report on Information Requirements in EMU was endorsed. It examined the status of implementation of the EMU statistics action plan to provide reliable statistics. The statistics are central to the economic analysis required to ensure the sound management of the euro.
ECOFIN noted with satisfaction that agreement in principle was reached with the dependent and associated territories and with Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino and Switzerland on the necessary arrangements to enable the savings tax directive to be applied. Following subsequent discussions, and the associated agreements with these third countries and territories, it was unanimously agreed at official level that its application date would be 1 July 2005. It is expected that the accord on the application date will be endorsed by the Council on 28 June.
The Council also agreed conclusions for the report on financial integration produced by the financial services committee. It also noted a number of related reports on the promotion of the EU internal market in financial services.
The meeting heard reports on negotiations on adopting new International Accounting Standards Nos. 32 and 39. It also heard from Commissioner Bolkestein on the latest developments in the EU-US financial services regulatory dialogue.
Over lunch Ministers discussed the future financing of the EU post-2006 and the price of oil. We took the opportunity to call on oil producers to provide increased supplies to keep oil prices consistent with stable, sustained growth in the world economy.
As I indicated already, the meeting made good progress and was very satisfactory from the Irish Presidency's point of view.