In The Press
EU finance reform (Letter in The Times)
17 June 2010
Sir, European Union finance ministers meet in Brussels today to discuss ways of improving market confidence in member states’ finances. Some have said that President Herman van Rompuy, the European Council’s increasingly active “facilitator”, is suggesting that member states should present completed budgets to the Commission before they are seen by member states’ own legislatures. They say this would be unacceptable.
If this was what Mr Van Rompuy was suggesting, it would be — but it is not. Anti-Europeans have erected another straw man, attacks upon whom are distracting us from the question of how we rebuild confidence in Europe’s economic competence. Mr Van Rompuy is suggesting what would effectively be detailed consultation on the economic assumptions on growth and borrowing and the general direction of spending — long before budgets are finalised and put into red boxes bound for national parliaments.
A number of European countries have got their budgets badly wrong and governments have long been accused of refusing to be open enough. Markets lost confidence, which urgently needs to be rebuilt. The UK’s Office of Budget Responsibility releasing detailed spending figures and Mr Van Rompuy’s proposals are all part of the same story of slow but sure structural reform for the better.
Roland Rudd
Chairman, Business for New Europe