Eurogroup: EU countries need to speed up reforms

The Eurozone’s ministers asked for the pace of economic reforms to speed up

Dutch Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem said that European countries need to speed up the pace of economic reforms but he didn’t point to any country in particular during the Eurogroup inance ministers meeting in Milan on Friday. “A number of countries have wasted a lot of time,” he said.

France’s warnings this past week that it would miss its deficit target loomed over the meeting. Dijsselbloem said on Friday that Eurogroup finance ministers will assess French plans to postpone budget deficit cuts only after they see the 2015 French budget.

“It’s just the beginning of the discussion, we need to see the French 2015 budget draft first and assess it and only later will we be able to say where France stands in terms of respecting the Stability and Growth Pact,” said Dijsselbloem.

Regarding Greece, Dijsselbloem confirmed that representatives of Greece’s troika of international credits are to return to Athens by late September. He said that meetings in Paris were useful in laying the ground. Finance Minister Gikas Hardouvelis briefed his European counterparts about progress in the implementation of Greek reforms. The Eurogroup ministers asked Hardouvelis to implement commitments, not just the ones related to the financial sector by the end of January 2015.

Eurogroup would begin discussion on the termination of the Greek fiscal program at the end of the year once the picture was clear following the termination of the Greek fiscal program at the end of the year.