Mr. José Leandro:

The Commission would co-ordinate this network of national competitiveness bodies and would draw information from them for its own analysis of a particular country. It would be able to give recommendations on a more educated basis. We would know much better what is going on in each member state than we do now. On the other hand, these competitiveness bodies would also help feed into the debate nationally about wider issues of competitiveness within the eurozone, because competitiveness is a relative issue - one is competitivevis-à-vissomeone else. This euro-area dimension is very often absent when the national debates take place. It will work both ways. The idea is not to have a one-size-fits-all approach across all eurozone member states - let me be clear about that.

I was asked about the euro area treasury. I mentioned wages and the Chairman mentioned the Low Pay Commission in Ireland, which recently proposed an increase in the minimum wage. This is a purely national issue. The Commission would not interfere in this type of decision at all and has no intention of doing so. The report makes it clear that the euro area treasury is the culmination of a process of the gradual integration of the fiscal area.

It is not something that would happen tomorrow and that is why the report puts it in the second stage.

The Chairman asked in what areas could there be a collective decision. Each member state must still be free to decide on taxation and the exact allocation of expenditures. For example, one could think of a fiscal union, because this would be the culmination of a process leading to the fiscal union, issues like the level of debt or the level of the deficit could be taken collectively. That is the aggregate figure of the debt of the amount of borrowing; the aggregate figure on the debts could be taken collectively. Then each member state within those limits would be able to decide, depending on its own preference, on taxation issues and how to allocate expenditures. This is how we would see a euro area treasury in the longer term.

On the question regarding the debt and the progress so far in reducing debt, there has been progress at an aggregate level. The level of the debt is now about 97% or 98% of GDP. We can see that the debt is clearly coming down in a number of member states. That is the case for Ireland where it has been very visible and the level is now 107% of GDP, more or less.