§ Mr. Matthew BanksTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the recent Council meeting of the Economic and Finance Ministers of the European Union. [190]
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeI represented the UK at the Economic and Finance Council—ECOFIN—of the European Union in Brussels on 14 October.
The Council considered a Commission report on guarantee arrangements for lending outside the Union by the European investment bank. The main issues discussed were the coverage and level of the guarantees on EIB lending provided by the loan guarantee fund and the proportion of lending on which the EIB should find third party guarantees—that is, guarantees which do not fall on the EU budget or member states. No final agreement was reached, and this item will be taken again at a future ECOFIN meeting.
Over lunch, EU Finance Ministers met EFTA Finance Ministers to discuss employment policy. A joint communique was issued which emphasised the need for macro-economic frameworks to support strong and sustainable economic growth, prudent budget policies and joint efforts further to implement the single market.
Commissioner Monti presented the Commission's work programme on VAT. Over the period to 2000, the Commission plans to bring forward a series of proposals to overhaul the current EC VAT arrangements to allow tax authorities to collect revenue and tackle tax avoidance with greater certainty. There was no discussion of this item.
The Council noted the report of the high-level working group on trans-European networks. This report rules out extra funding for TENs by a revision to the financial perspective and instead concludes that every effort should be made to remove all non-financial delaying factors.