A budgetary capacity for the euro area
Introductory remarks by Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB,
at a public hearing at the European Parliament, Brussels, 2 March 2016
Madam Chair, Mr Chair, Honourable Members of the European Parliament, Ladies and gentlemen,
I am grateful to the two rapporteurs and to the two committee chairs for holding this hearing today to advance the public debate on a fiscal capacity for the euro area. We are all well aware that political attention is largely focused elsewhere, but we should not lose sight of the objective of completing Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), securing its capacity to absorb economic shocks and creating confidence today in its future economic performance.
As I have said elsewhere, if downside risks to the recovery were to materialise, this would not make it easier to respond to the refugee crisis or to counter terrorism. [1]