In fact, as you know, the result of the European Council meeting some days back was, I would venture to say, most satisfactory. First, agreement was reached on the EU multiyear budget for 2021-2027, the negotiations for which had faced many difficulties in recent months, for an amount of € billion. Further, a recovery fund (Next Generation EU) has been created. This is additional to the budget and introduces a pan-European recovery financing framework that is unprecedented in the history of the EU. This fund will be financed by the European Commission’s recourse, on behalf of the Union, to the capital markets, for a maximum amount of € billion between 2021 and 2026, i.e. it is temporary in nature. The funds will be assigned to tackle the consequences of the COVID-19 crisis, both through loans to the Member States (48% of the total) and through direct transfers (essentially the remaining 52%). The gradual amortisation of this debt will run to 2058, through new EU own resources. To swiftly mobilise the aid, which will take the form of investment project financing and structural reforms, in areas such as research, progress in digitalisation and combating climate change, the European Commission will, before the European Council’s October meeting, submit proposals on how to accelerate and smooth procedures in the Member States.
For this response to be effective, it must be accompanied by national economic policy responses befitting the European action and the challenges we face. This response calls for the following: to maintain the support of fiscal policy to the economy, on a temporary basis, focusing on the groups of firms, sectors and individuals most affected and with a design that allows for the structural adjustments needed; to convert the European funds into a fiscal impulse that accompanies and steers the recovery effort of our productive system; to urgently implement an ambitious, comprehensive, lasting and assessable strategy of reforms that tackles the structural challenges of our economy; and, finally, to design a medium-term fiscal consolidation programme, for gradual implementation once the economic crisis caused by the pandemic is behind us, that ensures the sustainability of our public finances and enables fiscal buffers to be built up for use in future recessionary episodes. The future well-being of our country depends on an economic policy strategy that combines these principles. Thus, as I have stressed on other occasions, there should in my opinion be a high degree of consensus among the various political, economic and social agents regarding the guiding principles of this strategy, so that the foundations on which our growth rests are predictable and lasting. Thank you. 12