Eurogroup

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The logo of the Eurogroup since
July 1st, 2014.
Also the logo of the European Council , the Council of the European Union and the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union .

The Euro Group (formerly EURO-X ) is a body of the European Union in which the countries of the Eurozone coordinate their tax and economic policies. It also monitors compliance with the Euro Stability Pact in order to ensure the functioning of the European Economic and Monetary Union . To this end, the Eurogroup controls the budgetary policy and public finances of the euro countries. The group are informal and usually find the day before the Council for Economic and Financial Affairs (Ecofin) instead. The group is “a forum for dialogue and political coordination without specific decision-making powers”.

Members

The Eurogroup includes the economics and finance ministers of those EU member states whose common currency is the euro . Then there is the coming economic and monetary affairs commissioner of the European Commission (currently Paolo Gentiloni previously 2014-2019 Pierre Moscovici ) and the President of the European Central Bank (currently Christine Lagarde , previously 2014-2019 Mario Draghi ), chairman of the European Economic and Finance Committee as well as senior EU officials. In rare cases, summits of the Eurogroup also take place, at which the heads of state and government of the countries in the euro area meet.

Chair

Paschal Donohoe Mário Centeno Jeroen Dijsselbloem Jean-Claude Juncker

On September 10, 2004, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker was appointed first permanent chairman of the Eurogroup for a period of two years. His mandate began on January 1, 2005 and was extended on September 6, 2006 to December 31, 2008. According to the statutes of the Eurogroup at the time, Juncker's term of office would have ended as one and the same person may not hold the office of chairman for more than two terms of office. At the meeting on September 12, 2008, chaired by the French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde , his term of office was unanimously extended by a further two years to December 31, 2010.

In January 2010, Juncker was re-elected as chairman for two and a half years (see Art. 2 of Protocol No. 14: with majority decision), but announced on March 2, 2012 that he would retire in mid-2012. On December 4, 2012, Juncker announced that from the turn of the year 2012/2013 he would no longer be available as a Euro Group boss.

Paschal Donohoe , chairman of the Eurogroup from July 2020

On January 21, 2013, Jeroen Dijsselbloem from the Netherlands was elected as the new chairman of the Eurogroup. The 17 finance ministers named him successor to Jean-Claude Juncker. Dijsselbloem was the only candidate for the post. The regular term of office ended in July 2015. At the Eurogroup meeting on July 13, 2015 in Brussels, he was re-elected for a second term. He prevailed in a voting against the Spanish Minister of Economic Affairs Luis de Guindos .

The Portuguese Finance Minister Mário Centeno was elected chairman on December 4, 2017 and took office on January 13, 2018. Jeroen Dijsselbloem had to give up his position as head of the Eurogroup because his social democratic party is no longer part of the government in The Hague. The list of candidates also included the Slovak Finance Minister and Social Democrat Peter Kažimír , the Latvian Finance Minister Dana Reizniece-Ozola and the Luxembourg head of department Pierre Gramegna .

On June 9, 2020, Mário Centeno announced his resignation as Portuguese Finance Minister. So he also has to give up his position as head of the Euro Group.

On July 9, 2020, Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe was elected Chairman. He will take up office on July 13, 2020.

function

The body was set up in 1998 following the European Council in Luxembourg. Its functioning has been regulated since the Treaty of Lisbon with reference in Art. 137 TFEU in Protocol No. 14, which is annexed to the founding treaties ( EU / AEU treaty).

In the course of the common monetary policy, it was to be assumed that there would be an increased need for coordination between the euro countries, since the countries would no longer have a national monetary policy as an economic policy instrument after the introduction of the euro . Closely related to this is the task of the body to monitor compliance with the Euro Stability Pact in order to create an economically sound basis for a common monetary policy with only one currency, the Euro, through a disciplined budget policy for all Eurozone countries.

The purpose of the committee is therefore to analyze current problems in economic and financial policy and to coordinate suitable measures for national and European economic policy. However, since the Eurogroup is an informal body (Art. 1 of Protocol No. 14), it cannot take legally binding decisions. This can only be done by the Council for Economic and Financial Affairs , to which the ministers of the other EU countries also belong in addition to the ministers of the Euro Group. However, the states that have not introduced the euro are also not entitled to vote on numerous economic policy decisions in the Council, so that only the ministers of the euro group understand their previous decisions.

The holder of the presidency in the Eurogroup also represents the EU as an actor in international financial policy. B. in questions about economic and monetary union in the board of directors of the IMF ; he is assisted in this by a representative of the Commission.

criticism

Critics call this body too powerful. There is no democratic or contractual legitimation, complains the DiEM25 movement around Yanis Varoufakis . The international NGO Transparency International (TI) criticizes the fact that the Eurogroup, although it is not subject to any democratic control and is not accountable to anyone, makes far-reaching decisions within the framework of the euro rescue package ESM . Although the EU finance ministers are sitting around the table here, they do not fall under the usual EU rules on transparency and accountability. In order to remedy this democratic deficit, the role of the EU Parliament would have to be strengthened, according to the TI , and the Eurogroup would have to be obliged to give regular statements to parliament.

Eurogroup working group

The Working Group Euro Group - Euro Group Working Group (EWG) - is a preparatory body composed of representatives of the Economic and Financial Committee of the Euro zone is as well as representatives of the European Commission and the European Central Bank. The working group supports the Eurogroup in preparing the ministers' deliberations. The Austrian economist Thomas Wieser was chairman from 2012 to 2018 , followed by the Dutchman Hans Vijlbrief on February 1, 2018 . Since April 1, 2020 has Finn Tuomas Saarenheimo held the office of chairman.

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: Eurogroup  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Geiger / Kahn / Kotzur, EUV / AEUV, Commentary, 5th Edition Munich 2010, Art. 137, Rn. 1
  2. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , January 18, 2010: Euro Group: Juncker wants more power and influence .
  3. ↑ Juncker withdraws to Luxembourg . Frankfurter Rundschau. March 2, 2012. Retrieved March 3, 2012.
  4. ↑ "Mister Euro goes." Search for a successor under time pressure . tagesschau.de. December 4, 2012. Retrieved December 4, 2012.
  5. ^ "Dutchman Dijsselbloem leads Eurogroup" . tagesschau.de. January 21, 2013. Retrieved January 21, 2013.
  6. ↑ Intelligent, straightforward and efficient article on faz.net, July 14, 2015
  7. ↑ Mário Centeno elected new Eurogroup President | EU Council Newsroom. Accessed December 4, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Who will be the new head of the Eurogroup? Retrieved December 4, 2017 .
  9. ↑ Eurogroup leader: Centeno resigns as Portuguese finance minister . In: FAZ.NET . ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed June 9, 2020]).
  10. ↑ OJ. EU 2007 / C 306/01
  11. ↑ OJ. EU 2007 / C 306/153; consolidated version OJ EU 2010 / C 83/283. - Protocol (No. 14) Archive link ( Memento from August 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ according to Art. 51 TEU are "protocols and annexes part of the contracts"
  13. ↑ Geiger / Kahn / Kotzur, EUV / AEUV, Commentary, 5th Edition Munich 2010, Art. 219, Rn. 12
  14. ↑ Manifesto of Democracy in Europe⋅Movement⋅2025 , accessed on February 8, 2016.
  15. ↑ Transparency International criticizes Eurogroup. In: orf.at . February 5, 2019, accessed March 5, 2019 .
  16. ↑ Saskia Etschmaier: Mighty, but mysterious - criticism of the “ghostly” Euro group. In: orf.at . February 5, 2019, accessed March 5, 2019 .
  17. ↑ The working group “Eurogroup” . Retrieved January 13, 2018.
  18. ↑ Hans Vijlbrief: New head official of the Euro Group . Article dated December 14, 2017, accessed January 13, 2018.
  19. ^ Council of the European Union: Working group “Eurogroup”. Retrieved August 26, 2020 .