ECONOMIC SUMMIT:EUROPEAN COUNCIL president Herman Van Rompuy will today urge EU leaders to back deeper policy co-ordination at a special economic summit that is set to be overshadowed by the financial emergency in Greece.
Mr Van Rompuy is seeking a mandate from the 27 EU leaders to develop a tight set of priorities for the EU’s new medium-term economic plan, known as Europe 2020.
Each of these priorities would be backed up by a small number of headline targets for each member state. Such targets, to be agreed by June, would be policed by the European Commission in the same way as it oversees public finances under the EU’s stability and growth pact.
While any breaches of the targets would not be punishable by financial sanction, Mr Van Rompuy wants to deploy powers already enshrined in European law to issue “early warnings” and policy recommendations to member states.
In addition, Mr Van Rompuy will also ask each leader to come forward with proposals to eliminate economic “bottlenecks” such as infrastructure deficits or labour laws that inhibit economic activity.
He has been backed in the drive to deepen policy co-ordination by José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission.
Irish European commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn, who has charge of the research and innovation portfolio, said she took heart from the fact that “innovation-based growth” had been identified as a core theme for the 2020 plan.
