President of the Eurogroup and Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, Paschal Donohoe TD, is in Brussels today (Wednesday) to chair the November Eurogroup meeting of European Finance Ministers. He will also attend the Macroeconomic Dialogue meeting, which is a forum for discussion with the European social partners on economic developments and prospects.
The Eurogroup meeting will begin with a discussion on macroeconomic developments with a particular focus on inflation and fiscal policy coordination. Following this, Ministers will exchange views on the topic of competitiveness with a focus on a stock-take on the competitiveness of the euro area, the challenges and policy trade-offs.
Eurogroup will then hear from the Chairs of the Single Supervision Mechanism and the Single Resolution Board Banking as part of regular bi-annual reporting on the health of the European banking system.
The meeting will conclude in extended format with all EU Member States for a further discussion on the future of the European Capital and Financial Markets. This continues the focus the Eurogroup has given to this topic this year with a view to reporting back to EU Leaders in the spring of 2024. Trond Grande, Deputy CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management and Ronald Wuijster, CEO of APG Asset Management have been invited to give their insights from an institutional investor perspective.
On Thursday, the Eurogroup President will attend the ministerial meeting of EU Economic and Financial Affairs (ECOFIN) to debrief on Eurogroup discussions and to discuss the future of the fiscal rules. He will also participate in the State of Europe high-level roundtable organised as part of the Friends of Europe Festival of Politics and Ideas, where he will provide his views on the topic of “Let’s talk growth: alternative models for sustainable and inclusive economic growth”.
Speaking ahead of Eurogroup, Minister Donohoe commented:
“I am looking forward to a busy Eurogroup agenda, where we will cover a lot of ground from the state of the economy and how we coordinate our fiscal policies to banking union to the future of financial and capital markets. For the latter item, we will be joined by two very large institutional investors – Norges Investment Management and APG Asset Management. A key part of our work here is to hear directly and frankly from experts in the field. This exchange is part of longer-term work to build a political consensus that can inform the mandate of the next Commission, as well as countries’ capital markets development strategies. I also look forward to participating in the MEDPOL and ECOFIN meetings on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
On Wednesday prior to Eurogroup, Minister Donohoe will attend the Macroeconomic Dialogue meeting, which is a forum for discussion with Europe’s social partners represented by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Business Europe, SGI Europe and SME United. These meetings occur biannually and also include the Council presidency, the ECB and the European Commission.
The programme for the State of Europe event is available at this link: https://www.friendsofeurope.org/events/the-state-of-europe-high-level-roundtable/#schedule