Brussels – EU member states’ finance ministers (Ecofin) primarily discussed the so-called Competitiveness Compass on Tuesday. This was confirmed for the TASR reporter by the Slovak Minister of Finance Ladislav Kamenický (Smer-SD) after two days of negotiations in Brussels.
Kamenický recalled that at the start of the negotiations, he met bilaterally with his German counterpart, with whom he discussed issues of EU competitiveness. He particularly highlighted the high energy prices in Slovakia, which are four times higher than, for example, in the United States.
“I also mentioned to my colleagues at the Ecofin Council that we see this as the main reason for Europe’s lack of competitiveness. I agree that processes need to be simplified and debureaucratized, but we must be careful that some of the introduced deregulations do not harm the European market. It has to be done properly,” explained the minister.
He confirmed that the central topic of the debates in Brussels was the Competitiveness Compass, which the European Commission presented in January, a broader set of measures that need to be adopted to increase Europe’s competitiveness, with much talk about the Capital Markets Union.
“In Europe, many small and medium-sized enterprises are mainly financed through bank loans, which is inflexible, unlike in the United States, where it is the exact opposite. There, financing is through private money obtained in the capital market. We need a functional capital market for the EU as well, so that small firms can develop their business in other ways, such as by applying for a loan and proving their viability to banks,” Kamenický described the situation. He added that in terms of financing business flexibility, the Union is “a bit lagging behind” the rest of the world.
The EU has long talked about completing the Capital Markets Union, and according to Kamenický, the results of the US presidential elections can move things forward, accelerating this process because “everyone realizes” that if the EU does not do something and does not return to the very fundamentals of the economy, it will have a big problem. In practice, this means correcting some mistakes, such as mitigating the enforcement of “extreme” elements of the European Green Deal, which were precisely at the expense of competitiveness.
“The ship is very large, it goes by its own inertia, and changing the mindset is sometimes challenging,” Kamenický said, referring to political changes in the EU. (February 18)
