| Our regular Eurogroup meeting began with a discussion with the IMF on the euro area economy. Both the IMF and the Commission agreed that the euro area has shown remarkable resilience. We have contributed to this stability through our coordinated efforts. Inflation is down. Employment has stayed at record levels. And even if the outlook is uncertain these days, growth is set to resume. However, the focus for us – and the IMF has supported us in this – is on the reforms that can lift our growth, and our economic dynamism, and that can make room for investment and competitiveness. And innovation is at the forefront of this discussion.
We continued our discussion with an important part of our coordination of budget policies, which is the Commission’s assessment of the draft budget plans for next year. To that end, we adopted a statement. We are at the start of the implementation of a major revision in the economic governance framework, which we agreed earlier in the year. The draft budget plans for 2025 marked the first steps towards translating this framework into real measures. And despite the challenges that may come along the way, we have the commitment, the capacity and the framework to deliver on the right policy: a gradual budget consolidation path for the medium term, coupled with investments on structural reforms and efforts to improve productivity and competitiveness. We consider the slightly contractionary fiscal stance for 2025, coupled with a positive trend in public investment, to be appropriate, given the budget challenges that we face and the need to support the ongoing reduction in inflation. We congratulated those with budget plans considered on track and we reflected jointly on the risks and challenges, notably around budgets for next year. The Finance Minister for France, Antoine Armand, took the opportunity to debrief us on the latest political developments in France. We all recalled the importance of sound public finances and the need for all of us to take the measures to deliver on our budget commitments, which fundamentally is about the ability of our economies to grow in the years ahead, giving us a better prospect for living standards that are good and that can develop further.
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