Enhancing economic policy coordination

Key points:

The EESC hopes that European economic governance will be strengthened ensuring equal attention to the need for stability and job-creating growth.

It will be necessary to adopt an appropriate set of indicators which go beyond GDP and encompass social and environmental advances and losses and thus reflect the real concerns of the general public, by implementing the five actions planned under "Beyond GDP".

Achieving real coordination of European economic policies requires a consensus on both the reference and projected macroeconomic frameworks. To this end, the Committee trusts that steps will be taken to ensure that the key information is available to Eurostat.

The limited role of the institutions representing European citizens risks making public opinion view the reinforced rules as a "legitimacy deficit" in the EU's choices, in parallel with the loss of confidence in the EU identified by Eurobarometer surveys. In line with its role as consultative body, the EESC could help improve the functioning of the European semester.

One solution could be more intensive and operational use of macroeconomic dialogue.  However, if closer economic policy coordination extends not only to fiscal and monetary policy, but also to tighter wage policy coordination in the euro area, then freedom in collective bargaining must be respected: government targets for collective bargaining, let alone government-decreed wage cuts, are unacceptable and must be rejected.