Countries with independent central banks tend to have smaller budget deficits than those with government-controlled central banks. Thirdly, the studies in general did not find any evidence of a correlation between the independent status of a central bank and production growth.
With respect to the proposals advanced to make the debt criterion operational, the Commission’s suggestion of allowing excessive deficit procedures for insufficient debt reduction (vis-à-vis an annual 1/20 reduction of the excess over the 60 per cent standard for  5  4  See Franco and Zotteri (2010).