Reacting to ECOFIN conclusions today on the work of the task force that aims to strengthen European Union economic governance, Guy Verhofstadt, ALDE group leader, once again underlined the weaknesses of over-reliance on peer review in bringing discipline to macroeconomic policy-making:

"Europe's finance ministers have correctly identified the problem - a lack of governance - but failed to spell out the necessary solution. Peer review is exactly the mechanism that has failed to impose budgetary discipline in the past."

"Clarity and decisiveness in the economic and financial sphere have been demonstrated in the present period of crisis to be crucial in sending out the right political signals."

"It must be made clear that the Commission or the ECB, rather than the Council, are charged with making objective assessments of the state of national budgets prior to the adoption by national parliaments. This will not only ensure better coordination and coherence across the Eurozone but also give national parliaments additional tools for evaluating their government's economic policy commitments."

For more information, please contact:

Neil Corlett: +32-2-284 20 77 or +32-478-78 22 84

e-mail: neil.corlett@europarl.europa.eu