European Commission Publishes Progress Report on European Economic Monetary Union

The European Commission has published a report on progress made in Europe since the publication of "The Five Presidents' Report" of 2015, in which five of the EU's key figures set out their agenda for deepening the EU's Economic and Monetary Union. The report is published ahead of the Euro Summit on June 21, 2019, where EU leaders will meet to review progress in tackling the challenges faced by the EU.
 
The report reviews the recent achievements of the European Economic Monetary Union, and provides an overview of existing initiatives. Key amongst these are:
 

• The Budgetary Instrument for Convergence and Competitiveness, a fund that will support structural reforms and investment in EU Member States; the agreement on the main features of the Instrument is still under discussion, but this broadly would make available financial support (primarily from the EU budget) to EU Member States that submit proposals for investment and reforms, subject to achievement by those Member States of agreed milestones;
• The European Stability Mechanism, the fund established to deal with the Eurozone financial crisis; the intention is to revise the Treaty establishing the ESM, which will include revisions to the precautionary financial instruments designed to support EU Member States that suffer financial shocks; and
• The Banking Union, the system of EU banks that has been subject to significant risk-reduction measures following the Eurozone financial crisis; the EU has recently put in place measures to tackle non-performing loans and strengthen the framework regulating and supervising banks, but further plans are afoot, for instance to establish the European Deposit Insurance Scheme and develop an effective system for dealing with ailing banks.

The report then considers its projects for future development of these initiatives and invites EU leaders to consider the following actions to aid completion of the Economic and Monetary Union: (i) reaching agreement on the Budgetary Instrument for Convergence and Competitiveness; (ii) finalizing the changes to the Treaty establishing the ESM and integrating the ESM into EU law; (iii) completing the Banking Union; and (iv) accelerating progress on the Capital Markets Union and stepping up efforts to strengthen the Euro's role in the global economy.
 
View the European Commission's Progress Report.
 
View the Five Presidents' Report.
 
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