EU finance ministers debate budgetary sanctions

European Union (EU) finance ministers held a debate late Monday on possible sanctions against member states which breach EU budgetary rules, but no deal was announced.

The ministers "had an in-depth discussion on national fiscal frameworks, macro-economic surveillance and sanctions," EU President Herman Van Rompuy said in a statement following the meeting, adding they would pursue their work.

At stake was the introduction of sanctions to punish countries which break EU budget rules, which remained controversial among EU capitals.

As part of the reform in response to the Greek debt crisis, EU leaders had agreed in principle to improve economic governance in the 27-nation bloc, calling for tougher budgetary discipline and more economic coordination.

They decided in March to set up a task force composed of EU finance ministers and led by Van Rompuy to present detailed proposals.

The task force has met for three times and it was their fourth meeting Monday.

Arriving for the meeting, Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said it was time to introduce "more automatic" sanctions for states with excessive deficit.

However, EU member states were divided on what kind of punishments and how they should be applied to rule-breakers so as to prevent governments from running excessive deficit.

One possible option was to frozen the EU's regional development funds for countries breaking budgetary rules, but it was opposed by Spain, which was one of the biggest recipients of the EU money.

"We have to be very careful with structural and cohesion funds. Those should not be affected," Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado said on her arrival.

In the concluding statement, Van Rompuy said he would make an oral report to the EU leaders at their informal summit next week on the progress made since the task force's last meeting in June, but gave no indication of the progress.

The task force is expected to finalize its proposals in October.

Source: Xinhua