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EU suspends Stability and Growth Pact

The Stability and Growth Pact of the EU limits the state budget deficit in EU member-states by 3% and the state debt by 60% of GDP

© EPA-EFE/OLIVIER HOSLET

BRUSSELS, March 23. /TASS/. The EU Economic and Financial Affairs Council approved the proposal of the European Commission to suspend for the first time the Stability and Growth Pact - the baseline document of the Euro zone - for economic support measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the EU Council says in a statement released on Monday.

"Ministers of Finance of the Member States of the EU agree with the assessment of the Commission, as set out in its Communication of 20 March 2020, that the conditions for the use of the general escape clause of the EU fiscal framework - a severe economic downturn in the euro area or the Union as a whole - are fulfilled," the statement says.

"The use of the clause will ensure the needed flexibility to take all necessary measures for supporting our health and civil protection systems and to protect our economies, including through further discretionary stimulus and coordinated action, designed, as appropriate, to be timely, temporary and targeted, by Member States," the Council said.

The Stability and Growth Pact of the EU limits the state budget deficit in EU member-states by 3% and the state debt by 60% of GDP.

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