As part of its Spring Economic Forecast earlier this year, the European Commission set the reference rate and convergence margin for 2018.
The reference rates for 2019-2021 are based on my Department’s own estimates of potential growth. The reference rate is based on a ten-year average of potential growth rates. Therefore any change to a single year’s rate results in a one tenth change to the reference rate and to the permitted expenditure growth rate, assuming all other variables remain unchanged.
Thus, using the Deputy’s hypothetical potential growth rates for 2015: 4.8% results in an additional 0.05 percentage points to permitted expenditure growth and 6.6% gives an additional 0.23 percentage points.
To calculate gross fiscal space, the corrected general government expenditure is multiplied by the permitted expenditure growth rate. For 2019-2021, corrected general government expenditure averages €73.3 billion.
As a result, if potential growth in 2015 was 4.8 per cent, there would be circa €35 million additional fiscal space per year and potential growth of 6.6% would result in circa €170 million per year.