Assessing the European Fiscal Framework

Bruegel is organizing a closed-doors off-the-record brainstorming workshop in order to assess the current European fiscal framework. The event will take place on November 17 and will consist of two sessions. The first one will focus on the technical details of the current framework and will try to determine if the methodology used to review national budget and based on the estimation of structural budget deficits needs to be reformed. The second one will be more policy-oriented and will try to assess the economic justification of the rules and their adequacy given the current situation of the Eurozone. This workshop will bring together academics, policy makers from EU institutions and national authorities, and more generally experts on this issue.

Programme

9.15-9:30 Registration

9.30 Word of welcome by Guntram Wolff, Director, Bruegel

9.35-10.45 First panel: Fiscal rules based on structural budget deficits. Can the methodology be improved?

• Lucio Pench, Director, Fiscal Policy, European Commission, DG Economic and Financial Affairs
• Lorenzo Codogno, Director General, Italian Ministry of the Economy and Finance, Department of the Treasury
• Igor Lebrun, Chairman, Output Gap Working Group, and Belgian Bureau Federal du Plan
• Wim Suyker, Programme Leader, Public Finances, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis
• John McCarthy, Chief Economist, Department of Finance, Ireland
• Chair: Zsolt Darvas, Senior Fellow, Bruegel

10.45-11.00 Coffee break

11.00-12.45 Second panel: The Fiscal framework confronted to the current Eurozone situation. Is the framework adequate and economically justified?

• Pervenche Berès, Member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament
• Thomas Westphal, Director General, European Policy, German Federal Ministry of Finance
• Renaud Lassus, Head of Macroeconomic Policy and European Affairs, Treasury, French Economic and Finance Ministry
• Paolo Manasse, Professor, Economics Department, University of Bologna
• Rodolphe Blavy, Deputy Director of the Europe Office, International Monetary Fund
• Chair: Gregory Claeys, Research Fellow, Bruegel

12.45 Lunch