Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. Ehnts for his presentation. I will pick up where he left off on what he describes as missions. That is about what gets measured in the fiscal process. I gained experience of tracking the EU semester process when I was a civil society advocate and part of the Better Europe Alliance of civil society groups. What we measure is important. I had questions around fiscal rules. Dr. Ehnts has answered those clearly but there was a concern during the previous semester process, which was the annual instrument to measure the application of the fiscal rules and to send country-specific recommendations. What we found was that not just national missions but agreed collective missions of Europe such as the Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth - which was what Europe was meant to have as its mission for the last decade - kind of got put aside for short-term fiscal targets. We lost a decade when Europe could have invested in the transformations needed on climate change. We have done some good things in digital governance but we lost a lot of time in investment in the digital area. We have had inequalities within and between countries. These are recognised by the European Commission as current financial problems for Europe. With regard to many of them, their hands were tied in addressing them. It is about what we measure and the timeframes.

I have two questions. The first concerns what we measure. Dr. Ehnts has mentioned employment targets. The sustainable development goals and indicators from them form a qualitative measurement. Will he comment on that? That is important in terms of environmental and social targets and how we measure them qualitatively.

Dr. Ehnts mentioned Mr. Blanchard. While his proposition of fiscal standards as a replacement for fiscal rules contains something positive, they are still economic formulae. I credit the Acting Chairman for the phrasing because she has said that a rule might be "Don't drive above 60 km" and a standard is "Don't drive at excessive speed". A standard is an improvement but it is still a custom macroeconomic formula, whereas many indicators we need might be things like the sustainable development goals and climate goals. I will let Dr. Ehnts answer that and come back in with a question on timeframes.