Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

They are processed by ECOFIN; they are then advanced, as I stated, to the Council of Heads of State and Government and come back for final acceptance, subject to amendment by ECOFIN, at the July Council meeting. Normally, there is an engagement between the Commission and member states on how they will meet the recommendations, but there is a separate excessive deficit procedure. If there are comments on deficits, there is another process. Excessive deficit procedures are dealt with on the insistence of the Commission and ECOFIN with action taken to eliminate the excessive deficits. That is the process used. In the excessive deficit procedure countries can be pushed hard and subject to penalties if they do not comply. We have seen this happen in the past when the procedure did not apply to us because we were included in a programme. For example, in the autumn Austria did not meet what was considered to be the budgetary requirements to bring its deficit below 3%. ECOFIN acts as a kind of peer review of a country's budgetary position. During the peer review Austria was instructed to come back at the next meeting having taken extra budgetary measures. Austria's Finance Minister came to the meeting with a further €1 billion worth of budgetary measures to bring the deficit below 3%. That is the way it works. It is done by dialogue and an exchange of views on the policy matters surrounding legal proceedings, legal reform, etc. However, on specific deficit management, there is a harder edge to the process.