Opening remarks by Fabio Panetta, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, at the joint workshop of European independent fiscal institutions and the European System of Central Banks on “European fiscal policy and governance reform in uncertain times”

Frankfurt am Main, 20 September 2023

Our fiscal framework is at a crossroads.^[1] Negotiations on the European Commission’s legislative proposals for reform of the EU’s economic governance rules are entering a crucial phase.

To ensure this reform is successful and that it strengthens our economic governance, the new framework will have to protect us from the mistakes of the past. And it will need to make it possible to use again policies that have proven to be effective.

Before the pandemic, we had accumulated a significant public investment gap that had undermined our economic potential.^[2] Fiscal policy had often been procyclical. And macroeconomic policies had at times worked against each other. We have paid a high price for…