Kicking off the first European semester

The Economic and Financial Affairs Council of 18 January marked the beginning of the first European semester - a six-monthly cycle of coordination of the member states' budgetary and economic policies in line with the common rules.

© Fotolia

The European semester opens with the annual growth survey presented by the Commission. It contains an evaluation of the EU's economic situation and sets out priority actions that the member states should take to ensure sustainable growth of the EU's economy.

The most urgent task for the EU in 2011/2012 is to prevent a vicious cycle of unsustainable debt, disruption of financial markets and low economic growth. The current annual survey therefore proposes, as the first priority, implementing rigorous budgetary consolidation, the correction of macroeconomic imbalances and ensuring the stability of the financial sector.

It is also important to prevent the risk of returning to growth without sufficiently dynamic job creation. Thus, the second priority is to rapidly reduce unemployment through labour market reforms. These would involve making work more attractive, reforming the pension systems to make them more sustainable and stimulating the unemployed to return to work.

The effective implementation of these two priorities depends on a third very important goal – increased economic growth. The survey proposes capitalising on the full potential of the single market, attracting private capital to finance growth, and creating cost-effective access to energy.

In March the European Council should adopt a report which would present a general overview and review the progress made based on the annual growth survey.

More information:
Press release (pdf)
Webcast of press conference