A very European puzzle: balancing budgets and promoting growth

The Francisco Manuel dos Santos Foundation will host “A very European puzzle: balancing budgets and promoting growth” on 31 May in Brussels to generate a discussion on the revision of the EU fiscal rules and the strategy that it must put forward to foster sustainable economic growth.

The European Union is facing an economic conundrum after a severe and abrupt recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While the Next Generation EU calls for an ambitious investment plan, most EU member states face record levels of public debt, and the rise of inflation may trigger a new financial crisis that would destabilize sovereign debt markets.

Meanwhile, problems such as climate change and an ageing population, which are much older and structural, still demand a joint response that may promote sustained and inclusive growth and, hopefully, protect democracy from the allure of populism.

The main goal of the event is to generate a public discussion about the urgent revision of the EU fiscal rules which finance its budget and the strategy that it must put forward to foster sustainable economic growth in a changing world of American protectionism and growing geopolitical tensions between China and the West.