Noel Davern
Ceist:62 Mr. Davern asked the Minister for Finance the plans, if any, he has to meet other member states that may be listed for exclusion from the single currency proposed by Mr. Santer for 1997. [4123/95]
Written Answers. - Single EU Currency.
The Treaty of European Union provides that a decision on movement to the third stage of economic and monetary union — EMU — and a single currency, can be made in 1996 at the earliest.Accordingly, no member states have been listed for exclusion from the third stage of EMU and the single currency at this stage.
As the Deputy will recall, only two member states, Ireland and Luxembourg, were deemed by the Council of Economic and Finance Ministers — ECOFIN — in November 1994 to fulfil the budgetary performance criteria of the Treaty on European Union. The Government's Programme of Renewal makes clear our commitment to keeping Ireland's general government deficit prudently below the Treaty figure of 3 per cent of GDP and to steadily reducing our debt/GDP ratio towards the Treaty figure of 60 per cent. My 1995 budget set a target of 2.5 per cent of GDP for our deficit this year, while our debt/GDP ratio is projected to fall by up to 5 percentage points in 1995.
The Council of Economic and Finance Ministers — ECOFIN — in due course will be considering the issues relevant to the decision on movement to EMU and a single currency. In that context I will be discussing the matter with all my EU colleagues.