The Council of Economic and Financial Affairs (Ecofin) EU can start on Tuesday a procedure for fining Spain and Portugal for the excessive deficit in their budgets in 2014 and 2015.
ministers EU finance follow the recommendation of the European Commission, which last week officially announced that both countries had done little to correct their deficits. “The Eurozone members will vote tomorrow to support the recommendation of the committee unanimously,” said Monday Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who leads the group of 19 economic headlines EU countries using the euro, collect AFP.
If the decision is approved by the Ecofin, the European Commission will have to prepare sanctions within 20 days. However, it is expected that Spain and Portugal delivered a formal request for zero penalties in the next 10 days that would include a firm commitment on their part to set their budgets.
“unprecedented step”
the agency notes that the measure would be an “unprecedented step” and would highlight maxing also the French State. The EU law requires the Commission to impose fines of up to 0.2% of GDP in both countries.
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Spain and Portugal have come under the excessive deficit procedure of the EU since 2009 because of their fiscal holes after the crisis global financial. Portugal drastically cut its budget deficit from almost 10% of GDP in 2010 to 4.4% last year, but still exceeds the limits set by Brussels. For its part, Spain reported in 2015 a deficit of 5.1% of GDP, which stood still far behind the target of 4.2% set by the Commission and the normal limit of 3%.
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