This benchmarking benefits all the citizens of the euro area - in much the same way as consumers benefit from increased competition between firms in the form of higher quality and/or less expensive products. Good and promising practices or policies can be better identified and more widely implemented, while less successful or ill-designed economic policies are easier to recognise.
I am fully aware that it is not easy to implement structural reforms and consolidate government budgets because of the fact that the public opinion is sometimes not fully convinced that everybody would benefit from these reforms. The ECB, for its part, is not lecturing anybody, but considers itself part of the necessary process of awareness raising, of tireless explanation.