Valdis Dombrovskis

Policy topics Valdis Dombrovskis is active on

What Valdis Dombrovskis has said (80)

• 2026-06-16 “04:32 – 15:07:04): So, honorable members, madam chair, good afternoon, everyone. So, 1st on this, 1 in, 2 out question. So the commission introduced 1 in, 1 out, mechanism, to simplify and reduce administrative burdens for businesses in, 20 22. In 2025, we strengthened our efforts further and also introduced, ambitious targets to reduce administrative burdens by at least 25% and by, for all all companies and by 35% for SMEs. And, in terms of magnitudes of, cost savings, this goes beyond, what would be typically achieved using this 1 in, 2 out approach. During 2025, the commission table proposal is estimated to cut 15,000,000,000 of administrative costs per year, and that's a net result of, €15,250,000,000 of cost savings and 247,000,000 on additional costs. So meaning that these savings arising from existing stock of administrative burden are already significantly larger than the net reductions would typically result from 1 in, 2 out approach if you look solely on, new regulatory costs. What is, important, however, what I wanted to emphasize in this regard is also the necessity, to follow it through, by the colleges later. So of the 10 omnibus proposals, we note that on a number of omnibus proposals in the legislative process, the ambition for simplification is actually substantially watered down. And then we can pursue, you know, 1 in, 2 out, or aim for 25% burden reduction or pursue other approaches. We will not arrive at at meaningful burden reduction. So it's very important that the what we are putting on table in terms of agenda ambition for simplification is actually followed through in the legislative process. Thank you. \”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “43:16 – 15:45:28): Yes. So, concerning this, empowering consumers for green transition directive, it was enacted by co-legislators in February 2024, and it will apply from September 27 this year. So in a sense, there had been already two and a half years phase-in period allowing member states and companies to prepare. So commission provided further guidance on this in May, and we fully recognize the importance ensuring that implementation of this directive is proportionate, allowing companies sufficient time to adapt. And we are very well aware of the transitional implementation challenges raised in relation to certain, well, what we call, old stock products, meaning products already produced prior to application date. And to address this valid issue, the commission has organized a workshop with national authorities responsible for enforcing consumer protection rules early this year. And we've also took good note of the view of business associations, consumer organizations, and foremost, enforcement authorities, which are all there. So we fully support legal certainty for traders who act in good faith, and we need to avoid disproportionate outcomes, including unnecessary administrative burden or avoidable waste. And to achieve this, we are now working with national competent authorities in developing what's a common understanding on enforcement, so including notably as regards those old stock products. And this common understanding will be published this month or, well, July at the very latest, so ahead of the application date providing how this also old stock issue will be dealt with in a proportionate way. Thank you. Thank”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “29:35 – 15:31:04): Well, that obviously would require some more in-depth, look because, to apply simpler rules typically should be simpler and to have, like, less reporting points as, for example, we have now under sustainable reporting and so is still easier than, reporting more points. And it's worth noting that it's also a recurring exercise. So, yes, there may be a certain cost in having developed a system, which probably right now is not as extensive. But at the same time, also, those companies are going to have an annual savings from, having less burden to produce less data or do less reporting, which they have to do on a recruiting basis and thus also actually save money. So and, of course, 1 cannot absolutize this argument of, you know, kind of regulatory stability because and the argument can also come in in other direction. How come we can add something, any requirement in any area? Because then, you know, businesses help prepare their systems. Now they need to add something. It's a cost. You know? And so and if we accept that this can happen, we should be able to accept also that maybe then also removing something should should be acceptable.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “59:39 – 16:02:24): Yes. Thank you for this question. Okay. You mentioned specifically situation of farmers, so that's why we had the agricultural omnibus where we specifically came with a number of proposals, including simplifying the controls, moving to the principle of one on-site control per year and so on and so forth. So that's something which is already done. The sync first principle, that is something we outlined in our better regulation communication. And obviously, it's important that we are applying this moving forward. And as a commission with this better regulation communication, we committed to do so. But it's also important that during the legislative process, this stays. And also that when we are looking at impacts of also proposals which co-legislators introduced during the legislative process, that impact of those proposals, substantial amendments is being assessed so that we do informed decision making, and do not arrive at unintended consequences and unnecessary burdens. So I think it's our joint responsibility to ensure the quality of European lawmaking, and that's what we are committing to do through. Maybe just to give you one as a concrete example on a state of play on specifically for farmers. I was mentioning that I'm concerned with the state of play of several omnibuses, including food and feed safety omnibus where we, for example, proposed record keeping simplification for farmers as part of this omnibus. Now in a ecology process, this simplified record keeping for farmers is completely removed. So on one hand, there is lots of discussions. We need simplification, lots of calls on a commission. Please come with the proposals. We come with the proposals, and then we see many of those implications just disappearing in a legislative process. So that's indeed concerning, and I call on you also as the members who are willing to push this simplification agenda forward to pay a close attention to this that we are not watering down this simplification agenda also during the legislative process. Thank you.”
  Agriculture (green)
• 2026-06-16 “08:06 – 15:10:12): It's format. Okay. Yeah. So on on this so what I'm saying, in a sense, we're following a a different approach. So 1 in, 1 out would mean, being stable in terms of administrative burden, not adding to it, but also not, reducing. So aiming for 25% reduction of administrative burden and 35% reduction for SMEs goes substantially beyond it. So I use this 2025 example. So, if we have 15,000,000,000 reductions, which is a result of 15.25 savings and 250,000,000, 247,000,000 increases, so 1 in, 2 out, and the same would translate to 500,000,000 decreases. So 15,000,000,000 is obviously substantially much more. So that's why we're saying that with this 25% burden reduction, we are going beyond this approach. But we are measuring it differently. We are measuring it based on, existing, burden. Well, obviously, there are also, other ways to look at the cost, not only, administrative burden, and, there had been also certain, papers produced by the Danish and Cypriot presidencies and council looking at what they call the, cost of legislation when we can have this kind of more holistic view, also looking at the adjustment costs. Well, for purposes of simplification, we are focusing on, administrative burden because, well, the adjustment costs more often than not implies and also, changes in policies or changes in policies targets in a sense, something which goes beyond, strictly as a, simplification exercise. Thank you. Thank you.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “57:15 – 15:58:03): Indeed. That is less of a question, but maybe just to make some of the points, okay, from the commission, I cannot really talk on internal European parliament procedures on hiring assistance or so that's something which has to be dealt within the European parliament. On this broader bureaucracy question, I was mentioning before. It's clear that there is a recognition that this has become an issue that we have to address it, and that's why competitiveness, including simplification, is a key priority for this political mandate, and we are working to deliver on this. Thank you.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “19:11 – 15:20:23): Yes. So, on as a question on SME test on competitiveness check on issues like this, indeed, it is part of our legislative agenda or the way we organize the legislative work right now. We came recently with, as you know, better regulation communication where we outline also this approach going forward, emphasizing the importance not only on omnibuses, which is backward looking exercise, but also on how do we prepare legislative proposals going forward, that they are simple and streamlined to begin with. And SME test and, competitiveness check are important part of this, also applying the think small, principle. So all this is outlined in, our, better regulation communication, and it's now, obviously important that we are, following it properly soon. Thank you.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “11:40 – 15:13:44): Thank you very much for those questions. So on as a 1st part of the question, support for SMEs notably in less developed regions or outermost regions. Well, that's, indeed brings us to the discussion, on the next MFF. And, for the next MFF, as you know, the commission's proposal is now out and call legislators are working, and council has just reached a partial general approach as regards about the council position. And so in the case, further negotiations and also discussions with European parliament will, follow on, this. So from commission, side, we stand ready to, support this process and reaching a balanced agreement for the legislators. And certainly, in, the next MFF, we acknowledge the importance for continued support for, less developed regions, outermost regions, and for the, cohesion objectives, ensuring economic convergence across different regions. And for this, obviously, programs to support entrepreneurship, programs to support, SMEs is important part of this. On the 2nd question on, artisanal fishing, we are working on, also on simplification package in area of fisheries. So I think that will be a possibility to look in those specific topics. As you know, all in all, we are going, through the stress testing of entire European key and then putting forward, different sectoral proposals across different sectors of the economy, and fisheries, are also on our agenda. Thank you.”
  Cohesion and rural funding
• 2026-06-16 “36:12 – 15:38:35): Yes. So, thank you, for this question. Yes. We are monitoring, the impact of our simplification agenda, specifically on SMEs and our assessments that out of this €15,000,000,000 burden reduction, for all companies, SMEs will, specifically benefit from burden reduction of at least €6,000,000,000. And there are many instances where we we make it very tangible for SMEs, like under corporate system data reporting. SMEs are exempted from reporting obligations and also, so to say, dealing with this, passing through effect on larger companies or banks impose their reporting requirements on SMEs because they need it for their reporting. So addressing also this issue. Under, CBAM, we simplified for, small importers. Under invest EU, we streamline and misstep pro procedures for SMS. Small farmers are set to receive reports to simplify the payment scheme, also streamline controls. So I can give many examples like this. And on small, midcaps, well, you already mentioned, we had our small midcaps omnibus, where we are basically extending many of the simplifications which we have for, SMEs also to the small, mid caps. So, basically, creating a situation where, mid caps or SMEs, when they are growing, they do not, face this sudden threshold effects, and then suddenly they are subject to the reporting and other obligations as a large company. So we created in this this in between category exactly for this, allowing also our scale ups to grow and to to develop in Europe. Thank you.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “39:57 – 15:42:22): Yes. Thank you for this question. Well, indeed, gold plating, which is one of the elements which has been identified also by our leaders as something which harms a smooth functioning of the single market because if member states introduce wider stricter rules or obligations that go beyond the EU requirements, they are also fragmenting a single market. So, therefore, also in our recent communication on simpler, clearer, and better enforced EU rule book, we announced measures to tackle gold plating, so through better detection, follow-up, and prevention. So on detection, we used to plan to use consultations, including implementation dialogues we have now and reality checks. We will also obtain information from enforcement investigations in a context of single market focus areas for enforcement, also what is coming as systematic issues through our solve it system and so on. We will also flag potential gold plating risks to member states only during the transposition period when member states are preparing the transposition of directives, so saying, look, that is gold plating. And in terms of follow-up, we will use single market enforcement task force, also European semester. And to improve prevention of gold plating, we are developing a toolkit with criteria for member states to help identify and avoid gold plating in a national transposition and implementation of EU legislation. So we are taking this issue very seriously and will be following up. And notably, also, what we mentioned in the context of a single market in areas where gold plating would amount to breaching the EU law, we would not hesitate to launch infringement procedures. We want to address it also through enforcement. Thank you.”
  EU Single Market harmonisation
• 2026-06-16 “53:41 – 15:55:46): Yes. Indeed. That's a very pertinent question. And, of course, when we discuss housing, it's traditionally seen as primarily an issue for local governments or regional governments or member states and less so of the European Union. But it's now also more on the radar of the European Union because, indeed, access to affordable housing, it's an issue we see in many member states. And that's why also came forward with affordable housing action plan to see how to address it. And our primary point in this action plan is it has to be addressed through the supply side. So we need larger supply of housing and affordable housing, which obviously brings us to the questions of permitting and possibility to speed up development of this affordable housing. Well, specifically on housing simplification, we are preparing a housing simplification proposal for the second quarter of 2027. So it's in a pipeline. I cannot, at this stage, preview or say as like as content of this package because it's in early stages of development. But what can I say is that the issue of housing in general, and housing simplification is firmly on the commission's agenda. And also, during this European semester cycle, we were putting, for a number of member states where we see it particularly acute as a question of access to affordable housing also in the country specific recommendations, and we'll be engaging with member states how they are addressing those recommendations in this regard. Thank you.”
  EU housing policy
• 2026-06-16 “49:49 – 15:52:20): Yes. Thank you for this question. So, the question, okay. What is our KPI on this? And I think Adi was mentioning our KPI, which is reduction of administrative burden by 25% for all companies and by 35% for SMEs. And in a sense, that's how we can measure success whether we reached those burden reduction targets by the end of this mandate in 2029. So I think that's fairly clear and fairly measurable indicator. And I fully agree that, from SMEs' perspectives, it's key. It's key also for a broader perspective because if you look at, well, at the broader competitiveness issue, they are, I would say, not so encouraging figures that 3.9% of all workforce in the EU is dealing with compliance. And only 1.7% of all workforce in the EU is doing this research and innovation. And we really need more people innovating and less people filling forms. So that is what we want to achieve in this regard. But once again, to come back to the point I raised before, the commission cannot do it alone because what matters for SMEs in Ireland as you were putting it is not what the commission puts forward as proposals, but what comes out as legislative process. And, therefore, once again, I repeat my plea on the co-legislators, both council and parliament, to move swiftly with those simplification proposals and not to water down the simplification ambition in those proposals because that is a key what the SMEs will be feeling at the end of the day. Outcome of legislative proposal, not a commission's, outcome of legislative process, not commission's proposal.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “46:40 – 15:48:28): Well, thank you. Well, first of all, I would underline that commission understands the urgency of addressing this issue. So, this is why we made simplification an important priority of this mandate, and it feeds into our broader competitiveness agenda because it's worth noting when we are discussing simplification, it's one of the pillars of the broader competitiveness agenda. And if you look at the two overarching priorities for this commission's mandate, which we set, one is competitiveness of European economy, and another is security and defense. And we are following through on both of those priorities as a matter of urgency. And as I had been mentioning at the beginning, we had made a strong start in terms of our simplification agenda with 10 omnibus proposals this year, and we intend to continue with space and purpose going forward. Stress testings are key. More recently, we also announced what we called regulatory deep cleaning of 12 priority areas for a single market. So, from the commission side, we are certainly continuing to pursue this agenda and do not intend to stop and listen carefully to input which we are getting from the businesses from different stakeholders to identify the issues and find the best ways to address them and to reduce excessive and unnecessary administrative burdens. Thank you.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “21:44 – 15:23:42): Well, indeed, the issue is well known. Also, what we see from surveys of businesses, majority of businesses indicate regulatory burden as an obstacle for growth and investment, and majority of SMEs identified as their largest burden. So, obviously, it is our, task to act and to simplify this burden, and that's what our, simplification agenda, is all about. So, also, maybe coming back, back to the previous question and this. So can we be satisfied with the pace at which we are moving forward? I think, from commission's side, we had been for a good start last year with those 10 omnibus proposals. But where I do have some concerns is the pace of legislative work going forward and also what we see on a number of omnibuses as a ambition for simplification, going substantially down. I can also give specific examples across different omnibuses. I don't think, you know, the format of this exchange allows space to go much into detail. But, so where we see certain worries about progress, on omnibuses include including on chemicals, on digital, on environmental, and food and feed, safety omnibus, where we see, many of the substantial European, commission proposals, for simplification, being rolled back by, legislators. And then, of course, we will not achieve our, simplification targets there. Thank you, commissioner.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “26:51 – 15:28:47): Yes. So 1st, we must acknowledge that, so to say, this increased regulatory burden, very large legislative body, its interactions, its cumulative burdens have become problems in itself. And that's something which businesses are telling us themselves. So when we listen to the SMEs, they very much insist on the problems created by the success of administrative burdens. As I was mentioning before, majority of SMEs consider that that is their biggest problem. If you listen to the organizations representing SMEs like SME United, they are very strongly advocating for our simplification agenda. And, therefore, it's important that we move forward with this. So the arguments you mentioned, frankly, I had heard maybe not so much from SMEs, but, yes, from some larger companies. Occasionally, you hear this argument. But, still, if you listen to the business community at large, the overwhelming support is there for this simplification agenda. And what we had been emphasizing from the very beginning that our simplification is not deregulation, so we're not moving away from how our high social or environmental, goals. We are not moving away from from, like, green deal targets and so on. We are looking how to achieve them in a simpler and less costly way. And that's where we do have a strong support for business community.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “16:27 – 15:18:44): Yes. Thank you, for those questions. Okay. On in terms of overall reduction, we set our targets very clear at the beginning. 25% administrative burden reduction for all companies, 35 for SMEs. So and we also quantified it. So our estimate is that this 25% target corresponds to, annual burden administrative burden reduction of €37,500,000,000. So on, legislative proposals, the 10 omnibus proposals and some further simplification proposals which are on the table, they generate savings of some €15,000,000,000. So, therefore, 1 can say we have been actually for a a strong start in terms of our simplification agenda, and it is acknowledged by business community. But to reach our 37,500,000,000 burden reduction target, we need to continue with more or less the same pace also going forward. That certainly will mean that we need to put forward more omnibus proposals and 2 further proposals will actually follow next week on energy, products and taxation. And, all in all, in this year's commission work program, we have more than half of all proposals with a significant simplification dimension, meaning generating savings in administrative costs of at least well, generating net savings of administrative costs. But you also asked when businesses will start to feel all these differences. So far, only 3 omnibus packages are part of the EU rule book. So businesses start filling those ones. There are political agreements on, some more, and further, omnibus, packages are still in legislative process. And, obviously, businesses are not feeling the, elevation yet.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-16 “32:38 – 15:34:31): Yes. Thank you, for this question. I would say it, basically, boils down to the question on the pace of permitting for strategic projects. And we had been working a lot on this, permitting. So, last December, as part of the, environmental omnibus, we proposed regulation streamlining environmental assessments. So, to ensure that project developers across strategic sectors benefit from those accelerated procedures. And we complemented this also by specific rules concerning catering to certain sectors. So the proposed grids package contains significant facilitations which add to those already present in the renewable energy directive. The Industrial Accelerator Act puts forward accelerating permitting, again, building on the Net 0 Industry Act, also which harmonized industrial permitting with deadlines for procedures, single points of contacts, and and so on. And, the commission recently also published guidance on certain elements of Natura 2,000, the birth directive, the water framework directive, increasing the clarity on existing flexibilities and helping more uniform implementation, including during the permitting of these new projects. And as a next step, we, will be stress testing the birds and habitats directives, to assess whether they remain fit to achieve their objectives in a cost effective way and reduce any unnecessary, and mister Burden. Thank you.”
  EU policy on permitting for renewable energy projects
• 2026-06-16 “24:28 – 15:25:30): So on the 1st question, I would say, yes. We not only believe on this, we are acting on this and working on on this indeed to bring down the and mister Burden. And with this, also having, I should say, more scope for businesses to develop and grow in the European Union. What is important, however, that we stay the course. As I said, we had been for a good start, for a good 1st year, but we cannot allow this momentum to fade out because then we'll be staying very far away from our overall simplification targets which we have put forward. So we had we have had a good start, but it's very important to keep the pace.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU
• 2026-06-15 “Honourable Co-Chairs, Honourable Members, I welcome the opportunity to address this House at our 23rd Recovery and Resilience Dialogue. The amount disbursed under the Facility to support reforms and investments across Europe has surpassed €425 billion. Now, with the clock ticking, the focus must be on implementation to unlock the remaining funds. To support Member States in these efforts, the Commission recently published its Guidelines on the Closure of the RRF. The objective is to inform Member States about the final steps of implementation and the applicable obligations beyond. Let me recall the key deadlines: Implementation of all milestones and targets by 31 August; All outstanding payment requests submitted by 30 September; and And, as a rule, all payments by the end of the year. These three deadlines have practical implications that are discussed in the Guidelines in more detail. Firstly, they leave no scope for adopting amendments of RRPs after 31 August 2026. Secondly, the Commission will have a very short time to assess the final payment requests. We will not be able to pause our assessment to receive additional evidence, so Member States must submit complete and robust evidence as soon as possible, ideally well ahead of September. Thirdly, the Commission will no longer be able to launch a suspension procedure in cases where milestones and targets are assessed as not satisfactorily fulfilled after 31 August. The Commission will instead launch a reduction procedure, still allowing time for Member States to make observations. In the meantime, disbursements for the fulfilled milestones and targets will of course continue. A similar mechanism will apply in cases where the Commission considers that a reversal has occurred after 31 August. The Guidelines on the closure of the RRF also present reporting, audit and control obligations that will continue in 2027 and beyond. First on reporting. Member States' reporting obligations on the 100 largest final recipients of RRF funds will be maintained until 2028. And they must also maintain the national portals on which this information is published at least until 31 December 2028. Second, on audit and control. Audit and control activities will continue for as long as needed to ensure the protection of the financial interests of the Union. This means that Member States must keep internal control systems operating beyond 2026, for as long as the use of funds for any RRF-supported measures continues, including in financial instruments. Let me end with a few words about the important ongoing work regarding transparency and audits. Since we last met, the European Court of Auditors has published two reports on the RRF. In its Report on Transparency and Traceability, the ECA confirms that Member States generally collect data on actual costs. However, it also finds that actual cost data is not consistently used across Member States to update cost estimates, nor requested by the Commission to “manage” the implementation of the RRF. As you know, this is not allowed by the RRF Regulation, which explicitly precludes controls on actual costs incurred by the Member States. Having said that, Member States can and do submit actual cost data to justify RRP revisions, depending on the grounds for revision. And, in such situations the Commission duly considers this data and requests clarifications when needed. Overall, the report confirms that the Commission has implemented the transparency provisions of the RRF legal framework correctly. In its Report on Tackling Fraud in the RRF, the ECA acknowledges that the Commission's audits have contributed to improvements in national anti-fraud systems and that Member States have implemented RRF anti-fraud measures. While we disagree with some of the ECA's conclusions, the Commission has already implemented five of the seven sub-recommendations related to the RRF. And more broadly, the scrutiny by the ECA remains very high. We are currently working with the Court on six performance audits, including on REPowerEU, on energy efficiency and on how the RRF supports public administrations. The Commission is also currently exchanging with the Court in the context of its Statement of Assurance audit for the year 2025. The Commission continues to invest the time and resources at its disposal into ensuring high levels of accountability for the RRF. We are satisfied with the results achieved so far, including since the implementation of the RRF compares favourably with other funds. Honourable Members, we are now halfway through the RRF's final and most critical year. Member States have two and a half months to finalise the implementation of all milestones and targets. The Commission has been preparing for the RRF's conclusion for a year now. Our services are ready to process the last wave of payment requests in an efficient and rigorous manner, as I have outlined. In this context, we also look forward to your continued engagement to make the most out of the Facility over these last months. Thank you.”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• 2026-06-12 “Thank you, Minister. Good afternoon, everyone. First of all, I would like to thank the Cypriot Presidency and you personally, Makis, for all the work during this half a year and for moving many important files forward. Let me start with some positive news on CBAM. I welcome that today's meeting has reached a general approach on the European Commission's proposal to strengthen the carbon border adjustment mechanism. This will help close loopholes and strengthen CBAM's efficiency, ensuring European industry competes on a level playing field with international competitors. Next on Ukraine. I provided an update on our efforts to support Ukraine and exert maximum pressure on the Russian aggressor. On financing, there has been meaningful progress. Both the Memorandum of Understanding – covering the Macro-Financial Assistance and the Loan Agreement entered into force last week. This clears the path for the Commission to proceed with first disbursements this month. On sanctions, the Commission has prepared the 21st sanctions package earlier this week. We propose this in a context where Russia's war of aggression is being increasingly felt in the EU's eastern Member States. Recent weeks have seen hybrid attacks, disinformation campaigns and drone incursions. Once again, the package targets areas where sanctions hit hardest, like finance, energy, and trade. It also proposed a comprehensive sectorial visa ban for ex-combatants of the Russian armed forces and proxy groups. We now need swift adoption. I also presented the meeting with the main elements of the recent 2026 European Semester Spring Package. The package focuses on advancing Europe's competitiveness agenda and maintaining fiscal sustainability. We proposed a comprehensive set of country-specific recommendations to this end. I look forward to the Council's approval of the recommendations in July and strong implementation in the months ahead. There is no time to lose. The Commission also assessed the compliance of several Member States with the Treaty's deficit criterion and found that Bulgaria was not compliant. Following the opinion of the Economic and Financial Committee, the Commission will now propose to open an excessive deficit procedure for Bulgaria. At the same time, I welcome the Council's decision to abrogate the excessive deficit procedure for Malta, and the Council's endorsement of Spain's activation of the national escape clause for defence. Moving to the Recovery and Resilience Facility. Since our last meeting in May, the Commission has disbursed €18.6 billion to six Member States. This brings the total disbursements to €426 billion, or 74% of the overall envelope. We are now well and truly on the home straight. I therefore welcome today's endorsement of amendments to streamline the recovery and resilience plans of five Member States: Slovakia, Spain, Poland, Portugal and Belgium. There are less than three months left until the 31 August deadline to implement all milestones and targets. Finally, we held a constructive policy debate on the market integration and supervision package. The package a key component of the Savings and Investments Union. We must act to remove barriers and unlock the full potential of the EU single market for financial services. That is the only way we can channel investments to where they are urgently needed. Thank you.”
  Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)
• 2026-06-11 “Thank you, Kyriakos. Good evening, everyone. First we had our regular exchange on the macroeconomic outlook, which focused on fiscal-related issues. The energy shock, weaker growth, higher interest rates and defence needs are all placing pressure on public finances. And next year's budgets must reflect that reality. Careful calibration, consolidation measures, and rigorous prioritisation are essential. This is the only way to safeguard fiscal sustainability while addressing our urgent priorities. I would like to thank Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva for presenting the conclusions of the IMF's annual consultation on euro area. The European Commission and the IMF share a broadly convergent assessment. On reforms, we concur with the IMF's emphasis on three priorities: enhancing the resilience of our energy system, deepening our Single Market, and advancing the Savings and Investments Union. On fiscal policy, we agree that Member States should already begin planning for the period after the national escape clause. This is essential to ensure that the fiscal adjustments required thereafter are orderly and gradual. Next, we held a substantive discussion on strengthening Europe's energy security and economic resilience, drawing on a presentation by Managing Director Georgieva. This was a very timely discussion. The European Commission continues to insist that we learn from the lessons of previous crises. Support measures households and businesses in the current energy shock context must be temporary and targeted and should not increase the aggregate demand for fossil fuels. At the same time, we must scale-up homegrown clean energy, continue electrification and strengthen our grid infrastructure. These priorities were also reflected in the European Semester Spring Package the European Commission presented last week. Where also now, upon request by a Member State, the scope of the current National Escape Clause for defence can be broadened for energy measures that reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. This provides Member States with the space to address the structural causes of the energy crisis while preserving fiscal sustainability. We also held a substantive discussion on the economic dimensions of European technological sovereignty. Digital technologies – in particular AI, cloud and chips – will be central to Europe's future productivity and growth. Tech sovereignty and competitiveness go hand-in-hand and should be pursued together. The European Commission's recent Tech Sovereignty Package seeks to do exactly this: strengthening resilience, reducing strategic dependencies and supporting Europe's capacity to develop and scale critical technologies. This ambition must be matched by resources. We urgently need to mobilise private capital to step up and fund our largest, most strategic projects. That underlines the need to deepen and integrate our capital markets. This is another example of why advancing Europe's Savings and Investments Union remains an urgent priority. There is also an energy angle. We must manage the growing energy demands of digitalisation while unlocking the immense opportunities that innovation places within our reach. Thank you.”
  EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
• 2026-06-04 “Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 4.6.2026 Written question Statistics on accidents at work are collected in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 349/2011 [1] . As provided for in Annex II [2] to that regulation, certain categories of civil servants subject to national confidentiality rules may be excluded from the statistical coverage. Any additional limitations in coverage arising from national legislation are documented in the statistical office of the EU (Eurostat) publicly available metadata [3] on national data sources. The Commission continues to support improvements in the coverage, reliability and comparability of statistics on accidents at work. Efforts are ongoing to progressively enhance the scope of data collection, within the framework set by Regulation (EU) No 349/2011. In this context, Eurostat provides methodological guidance and facilitates the exchange of best practices to promote further harmonisation of national approaches. The Senior Labour Inspectors’ Committee publishes consolidated EU data on resources of labour inspectorates in a report [4] . Data on labour inspectorate resources in candidate countries is limited largely to what candidate countries provide for the annual enlargement reports [5] and is not consolidated. [1] Commission Regulation (EU) No 349/2011 of 11 April 2011 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1338/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on Community statistics on public health and health and safety at work, as regards statistics on accidents at work, https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32011R0349. [2] List of professions subject to confidentiality for delivery on a voluntary basis. [3] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/cache/metadata/en/hsw_acc_work_esms.htm. [4] The latest version of that report can be found here: https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/fea534f4-2590-4490-bca6-504782b47c79/library/8515c860-bdea-4f5f-9e6f-a3f132c9043f?p=1&n=10&sort=modified_DESC. [5] See, e.g., https://enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/2025-enlargement-package-shows-progress-towards-eu-membership-key-enlargement-partners-2025-11-04_en for the reports of 2025.”
  EU competences on social policies · EU rules on hazardous working conditions
• 2026-06-01 “The Western Australian Museum in Perth houses an unexpected treasure: A remarkable collection of 17th-century Dutch silver coins, recovered from the Batavia, a flagship of the Dutch East India Company. Setting out on its maiden voyage in 1629, it carried 250,000 guilders in twelve wooden chests, destined for the spice markets of Java. It never arrived, striking a reef and sinking thousands of kilometres from home. Today, its treasures serve as a reminder that a European currency with global reach is nothing new. Indeed, the Dutch guilder was the first truly global reserve currency, accepted as readily in Manhattan and Jakarta as it was in Delft and Utrecht. It earned this status through three key strengths: a global footprint, backed by a vast trading network, the credibility that comes from trusted institutions, and a remarkable capacity for financial innovation. While the world has changed almost beyond recognition since those coins were minted, the essential features that determine a currency's global status have not. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to join you for today's conference on the International Monetary System and the Role of the Euro. I would like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts on why the euro is well positioned to fulfil its potential as a truly global currency, and why that objective is both necessary and urgent. Today's world has grown more challenging and less predictable for reasons that we are all familiar with. Once, crises interrupted stability. Now, brief periods of stability seem to punctuate one crisis after another. Of course, disruptions to the status quo also create opportunities. Including for our common currency. During periods of market turbulence, the US dollar has typically acted as a global safe haven, attracting investors seeking the perceived shelter of US markets. Yet, something unusual happened following Washington's announcements on the imposition of a very broad package of tariffs in April 2025. The dollar fell. While US Treasury yields rose sharply. This is the opposite of what usually happens to the world's reserve currency in a highly uncertain environment. All of this does not rewrite the rules of global finance, of course. But it was very widely noticed and characterised by some as a “reserve currency shock.” This episode may be taken as a signal, perhaps, that investors are open to seeking alternative safe havens. Today, the euro is already well established as the world's second most important currency, after the dollar. It accounts for roughly 20% of official foreign exchange reserves, around 25% of all foreign currency denominated debt issuances, And the euro's share of global export invoicing, at more than 40%, remains as large as the share of the US dollar. This prominence has not come about by accident. It reflects our common currency's fundamental strengths. But the euro can play an even stronger role on the world stage, and act as a credible alternative for those looking to reduce their exposure to a single dominant currency. It has what it takes to go truly global, backed by three broad strategic assets: resilience at home, reach across the world, and a readiness to meet tomorrow's challenges. Allow me to explore each of these elements in turn. Beginning with resilience. The euro is backed by economic scale. The EU's Single Market brings together 450 million consumers and 26 million companies. With a GDP of €18 trillion, the European Market is the second largest economy in the world, accounting for almost 18% of the global economy. A large, competitive economy underpinned by strong institutions and macroeconomic stability provides an essential foundation of a stronger international role for the euro. The euro is backed by trusted institutions. Investors can rely on Europe's commitment to the rule of law, the independence of our monetary institutions and the impartiality of our statistical authorities. At a time when the liberal order is being challenged around the world, this provides the euro with a key comparative advantage. The euro is also backed by a stable macroeconomic environment. The determined efforts to address weaknesses in the architecture of our economic and monetary union in the aftermath of the financial crisis paid off. These reforms have been complemented with a new fiscal framework that further strengthens the sustainability of our public finances. In recent years, the European economy has successfully navigated a series of near unprecedented shocks without the euro's integrity ever being called into question. Stable and sound public finances underpin the attractiveness of the euro and provide the basis for an increase in the supply of high-quality euro-denominated sovereign debt. Of course, more remains to be done to build on these strengths and further enhance Europe's resilience. Much more. We must maintain our commitment to sustainable public finances, even as we are faced with new and pressing spending needs. We must double down on boosting competitiveness, improving the regulatory environment and removing the remaining barriers that still fragment our Single Market. This is especially true when it comes to creating a more unified, liquid and efficient European capital market. And we must not forget that in a more dangerous world, it remains critical that Europe delivers on its commitment to take responsibility for its own defence. A currency cannot sustain global reserve status without the hard power to back it up. For investors, a currency that can be defended is a currency that can be fully trusted. Second, global reach. The rules-based international order that powered global prosperity for decades is under severe strain, to put it mildly. Openness is giving way to protectionism. Multilateralism is in retreat. But at a time when others are erecting barriers, Europe is building bridges. We remain open for business, for new and existing partners alike. The EU is already the world's largest trade bloc, accounting for an estimated 15.8% of world trade in 2024, and the top trading partner for 80 countries. This year alone has seen the conclusion of major new trade agreements such as with Mercosur and India. The EU and its Member States are the largest global provider of Official Development Assistance, accounting for 42% of global development assistance in 2022 and 2023. That percentage is likely to increase significantly as other powers significantly cut their aid budgets. And the €300 billion Global Gateway investment programme will deepen our ties with Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, the Pacific, Latin America, and the Caribbean in the years ahead. These relationships serve more than commercial and humanitarian goals. They extend Europe's presence, reinforce our partnerships, and advance our interests. They provide the essential global footprint that encourages the use of the euro in international transactions. And send a signal to the world that the euro is a currency that is backed by a power guided not by transaction or exploitation, but by mutual benefit. So, the EU remains firmly committed to open and rules-based trade, investment and international cooperation. Addressing the risks that come with this openness is key to preserving it. A stronger international role of the euro can underpin our efforts to enhance the EU's economic security. When more countries hold euro reserves or settle trade in euros, they acquire a structural stake in stable, positive relations with the EU. A stronger international role for the euro grants us greater leverage and a powerful addition to our diplomatic toolkit. Let me turn, finally, to the euro's readiness to meet the future. Today, we are preparing to make the most significant step forward since the euro was launched. The digital euro, issued and backed by the ECB on European technology, will provide our currency with a digital monetary anchor while reinforcing the EU's strategic autonomy through a sovereign, pan-European payment system. Technological change is reshaping finance at pace. The euro must keep up and position itself as a currency ready and able to move with the times. The focus must now be on completing the legislative work for the digital euro and accelerating our preparatory steps. Ladies and gentlemen, we do not seek a greater international role for the euro for its own sake. It means lower borrowing costs for European governments, businesses, and households. It means reduced exposure to exchange rate volatility. It means insulation from the use of financial channels as instruments of political coercion. In short, it enhances Europe's strategic autonomy: our ability to act in our own interests, on our own terms, without dependence on the infrastructure or goodwill of others. It is a crucial tool to ensure Europe can still choose its own destiny. That it can still be a shaper of world events, rather than resign itself to merely being shaped by them. There are those who have expressed fears that a stronger international role for the euro will necessarily result in a stronger exchange rate. We must continue the process of integrating our financial markets so that they are deep enough to absorb inflows from investors seeking a safe haven. There is no convincing evidence of a long-term link between a currency's share of global foreign exchange reserves and its real effective exchange rate where those deep markets exist. Look at the dollar. It has remained the world's global reserve currency in times of strength and weakness thanks to the unrivalled depth of US financial markets. Ladies and gentlemen, to conclude. The world is changing. We live in an era where beliefs that were once taken as articles of faith can be quickly discarded. The guilders washed ashore from the Batavia's ill-fated voyage tells us that, just like everything else, the status of global currencies can rise and fall. Today, the euro has what it takes to go global. The foundations are there. Now is the moment for the euro to take its natural next steps and develop a global role that finally reflects its political, economic and financial weight. Thank you.”
  Financial regulation
• 2026-05-22 “Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 22.5.2026 Written question Eurostat publishes data on total annual financial assets and liabilities of the total economy [1] , as well as on non-financial assets by detailed asset type [2] , for all Member States, starting from 1995. The data are also available by institutional sector. Annual financial accounts data are transmitted to Eurostat by all Member States , including data for Germany compiled by the Deutsche Bundesbank following the European System of National and Regional Accounts [3] ( ESA 2010), and are used to compile Euro Area and EU aggregates by institutional sector. National accounts and annual financial accounts data transmitted to Eurostat by EU countries follow ESA 2010, the EU’s internationally compatible accounting framework. Eurostat issues manuals and methodological guidance to support harmonised implementation by all Member States and applies a robust quality assurance framework to the transmitted data. Since 2018, and every five years thereafter, Eurostat reports to the European Parliament and the Council on the application of ESA 2010, assessing the data quality, the effectiveness of the regulation and its monitoring process, as well as progress on contingent liabilities and data availability (the latest report was released in 2023 [4] ). [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/8333a515-e77d-4728-9b4e-b256cc7ad86b?lang=en&createdAt=2026-03-27T09:23:52Z. [2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/f0a4b7d5-abb5-4582-80bc-6b00aa0a8ae7?lang=en&createdAt=2026-03-27T14:07:45Z. [3] Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union (OJ L 174, 26.6.2013, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2013/549/oj). [4] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=COM%3A2023%3A308%3AFIN.”
  Wealth taxation · EU regulation on financial data access
• 2026-05-22 “It's good to be back in Nicosia. We started our discussion with macroeconomic developments. Yesterday, I presented the European Commission's Spring Economic Forecast. The conflict in the Middle East has triggered a new energy shock, affecting inflation, growth, and public finances across the EU. Higher energy prices are already hitting households and businesses across Europe. Overall, headline inflation in the EU is projected to reach 3.1% this year before easing to 2.4% next year. The European economy is still expected to grow, but at a slower pace. GDP growth in the EU is projected at 1.1% in 2026, before edging up to 1.4% in 2027. The energy shock is also placing additional pressure on our public finances. Ten Member States recorded deficits above 3% of GDP in 2025. And by 2027, this number is expected to rise to thirteen. We project the average EU budget deficit to increase from 3.1% of GDP in 2025 to 3.5% this year, and 3.6% next year. Against this backdrop, we must remain vigilant in safeguarding sound public finances. This means drawing the right lessons from past crises and ensuring that support measures remain temporary and targeted. More broadly, while the energy crisis is our latest test, the broader challenges facing the European economy remain in place. We must double down on our commitment to build a more competitive Europe to secure our long-term prosperity. We also held a good discussion on the digital euro. This project is central to Europe's efforts to strengthen our strategic autonomy and fully seize the opportunities of the digital age. I welcome recent progress made in discussions within the European Parliament. We must now maintain this positive momentum, with a view to concluding negotiations by the end of this year, in line with the “One Europe, One Market” roadmap. The European Commission stands ready, as always, to provide all necessary technical support to help facilitate further progress. Finally, we held a useful exchange on the economic challenges and policy options related to housing. Of course, housing realities are mostly national, regional and local, so housing policy remains a national competence. But the Commission's first-ever European Affordable Housing Plan, presented last year, sets out measures to help address the growing imbalance between housing supply and demand. Ultimately, Europe needs more homes. We must therefore focus on increasing supply Including by simplifying regulations and permitting procedures and addressing labour shortages in the construction sector. This can help create the conditions for a meaningful improvement in housing affordability. Thank you.”
  EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
• 2026-05-22 “Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 22.5.2026 Written question 1. Eurostat publishes data on total annual financial assets and liabilities of the total economy [1] , as well as on non-financial assets by detailed asset type [2] , for all Member States, starting from 1995. The data are also available by institutional sector. 2. The stocks of non-financial and financial assets for Germany for the reference year 2023 in EUR million are as follows: Non-financial assets — excluding IPPs (tangible assets) 21,651,552; Intellectual Property Products (IPPs) (intangible assets) EUR 719,718; Financial net worth 3,180,374. The same data for other Member States can be obtained following the links in footnotes 1 and 2. 3. National accounts and annual financial accounts data, transmitted to Eurostat by Member States and published on the website of Eurostat, follow the European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA 2010) [3] . [1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/8333a515-e77d-4728-9b4e-b256cc7ad86b?lang=en&createdAt=2026-03-27T09:23:52Z. [2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/f0a4b7d5-abb5-4582-80bc-6b00aa0a8ae7?lang=en&createdAt=2026-03-27T14:07:45Z. [3] Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union (OJ L 174, 26.6.2013, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2013/549/oj).”
  Wealth taxation
• 2026-05-21 “Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 21.5.2026 Written question Eurostat publishes data on total annual financial assets and liabilities of the total economy, as well as on non-financial assets by detailed asset type, for all Member States, starting from 1995. The data are also available by institutional sector. All the necessary elements are therefore available for users to combine the data and compile a complete balance sheet for the economy. The data follow the conceptual requirements of the European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA 2010) [1] , which are followed by the Deutsche Bundesbank . Eurostat publishes data on total annual financial assets and liabilities of the total economy [2] , as well as on non-financial assets by detailed asset type [3] , for all Member States, starting from 1995. The data are also available by institutional sector. [1] Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union (OJ L 174, 26.6.2013, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2013/549/oj). [2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/8333a515-e77d-4728-9b4e-b256cc7ad86b?lang=en&createdAt=2026-03-27T09:23:52Z. [3] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/bookmark/f0a4b7d5-abb5-4582-80bc-6b00aa0a8ae7?lang=en&createdAt=2026-03-27T14:07:45Z.”
  Wealth taxation
• 2026-05-21 “Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 21.5.2026 Written question The ‘One Europe, One Market’ roadmap was announced following the informal EU Leaders’ retreat of 12 February 2026 and further referred to in the Commission President’s letter to Leaders ahead of the March 2026 European Council and in the European Council Conclusions of 19 March 2026. The aim is for the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission to deliver swiftly on key initiatives for the Single Market with clear timelines for delivery by the end of 2027. The roadmap will establish measurable targets and provide a framework to ensure that strategic priorities are implemented and commitments delivered. The Commission remains committed to its better regulation high standards and to working in a transparent, inclusive and evidence-based manner. All Commission initiatives follow better regulation principles and guidelines, which include the built-in flexibility to account for urgencies and prepare legislation in a short time frame, if necessary. Further to adoption by the Commission, the proposals follow the interinstitutional negotiation process, in full respect of prerogatives and responsibilities of the co-legislators as foreseen by the Treaties.”
  EU engagement with citizens · EU political integration
• 2026-05-19 “Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 19.5.2026 Written question The Commission does not comment on individual appointment procedures or candidates for membership in the board of independent fiscal institutions (IFIs). The relevant EU legislation (Article 8(a)(3) of Council Directive 2011/85/EU [1] as amended by Council Directive (EU) 2024/1265 [2] ) states that ‘Independent fiscal institutions shall be composed of members nominated and appointed on the basis of their experience and competence in public finances, macroeconomics or budgetary management, and by means of transparent procedures’. The Commission is in the process of assessing the national provisions transposing the amended provisions under Council Directive (EU) 2024/1265, including provisions covering independence safeguards. While the transposition deadline for Member States for the amending Directive was 31 December 2025, several Member States did not yet submit information detailing what transposition measures have been taken. The assessment will be based on formally submitted information from every Member State. The implementation of transposed provisions in practice is equally important. To safeguard the IFIs’ independence in practical terms, it is primarily the task of national actors (public authorities, elected representatives and the judiciary) to ensure a correct application of national law. The Commission follows the national debates and keeps contact with IFIs. In case of a systematic failure of national authorities to implement EU law, the Commission could take action under Article 258 of the Treaty [3] . In such instances, indications of measures, absence of measures, or practices of a Member State that are contrary to EU law are investigated by the Commission in cooperation with the Member State concerned in the context of an informal dialogue or an infringement procedure. [1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2011/85/oj/eng. [2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L_202401265. [3] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:12012E/TXT:en:PDF.”
  EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
• 2026-05-08 “Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 8.5.2026 Written question The Commission put forward a plan to simplify EU laws and cut burdens, laid out in the communication ‘A simpler and Faster Europe’ [1] , to reduce burdens by at least 25% for companies and 35% for small and medium-sized enterprises, which means cutting administrative costs by EUR 37.5 billion by the end of the mandate. In 2025, the Commission adopted ten omnibus proposals and other simplification initiatives, bringing EUR 15 billion annual administrative savings. Furthermore, the President of the Commission announced a regulatory deep house cleaning of the acquis to eliminate outdated provisions and overlaps and foster regulatory consolidation. : To ensure more uniform application of EU policies, the Commission will also address gold-plating at national level, which can result in additional barriers and costs. This Action Plan was presented on 28 April 2026 as part of the communication on a ‘Simpler Clearer and Better Enforced EU Rulebook’ [2] . To support these efforts, the Commission has introduced new consultation tools to reach out to stakeholders, seeking their views on what is working and what could be improved. Members of the College have held a total of 57 Implementation Dialogues so far [3] , engaging over 1 100 diverse stakeholders. Insights from the implementation dialogues have contributed to several omnibus and simplification proposals. Moreover, the next multiannual financial framework will have a simpler architecture, with fewer programmes and common rules across programmes. Advisory and business support services will be streamlined. More than 30 online portals with information about the budget will be merged into one user-friendly entry point. The Commission will reuse existing data and embed ‘digital by default’ and ‘once-only’ principles to ease reporting and compliance costs. [1] Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, A simpler and faster Europe: Communication on implementation and simplification, COM(2025) 47 final. [2] COM(2026)380 final https://commission.europa.eu/publications/simpler-clearer-and-better-enforced-eu-rulebook_en. [3] https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-making-process/better-regulation/simplification-and-implementation/implementation-dialogues-0_en.”
  Conditions to access EU budget · Digitalization of public governance & administration
• 2026-04-30 “E-000938/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission introduced the ‘one-in, one-out’ mechanism in 2022 to simplify and reduce administrative burdens for businesses 1 . In 2025, the Commission strengthened its efforts, going hand in hand with facilitating implementation and enforcement. The Commission has set a very ambitious target of reducing administrative burdens for companies by at least 25%, and by at least 35% for small and medium-sized enterprises. This target goes much beyond savings that could be achieved with the ‘one in, two out’ approach. During 2025, the Commission tabled Omnibus and other Simplification Proposals, which – if approved by the co-legislators, could deliver at least EUR 15 billion savings in recurring administrative costs 2 . This is the net result of EUR 15.25 billion in cost savings and EUR 247 million in additional costs. This result is already now significantly more ambitious than any level of savings that would result from a ‘one-in, two out’ approach. The Commission has a comprehensive agenda for regulatory efficiency and is stepping up its simplification efforts. Implementation dialogues and reality checks are helping to identify undue complexities and simplification avenues. An Action Plan on Regulatory Deep Cleaning, recently announced by the President of the Commission, will further address overlaps, duplications, inefficiencies and redundancies, as well as foster the consolidation of legislation in fragmented areas. 1 The results can be found on the website: https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-making-process/betterregulation/simplification-and-implementation/simplification/one-one-out-approach_en. 2 https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-making-process/better-regulation/simplification-andimplementation/simplification_en.”
  EU political integration
• 2026-04-23 “E-000779/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission assesses the fulfilment of milestones and targets under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) 1 against the specific requirements defined in the Council Implementing Decision approving each national Recovery and Resilience Plan. The same methodology is applied when assessing milestones and targets related to low-emission zones, thereby verifying whether the elements required, such as the completion of physical investments or the adoption and entry into force of enabling legislation, have been achieved. Where the defined requirements are met, the milestone or target may be considered satisfactorily fulfilled, irrespective of progress on other milestones or targets linked to the same reform or investment. RRF funds are only released following the satisfactory fulfilment of the relevant milestones and targets by the Member States. Article 24(6) of the RRF Regulation 2 provides for a full or partial suspension of the financial contribution where the Commission assesses that the milestones and targets have not been satisfactorily fulfilled. Member States are responsible for ensuring that measures under the RRF are implemented in compliance with applicable EU and national law, including environmental legislation. 1 https://commission.europa.eu/funding-tenders/find-funding/eu-funding-programmes/recovery-and-resiliencefacility_en. 2 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/241/oj/eng.”
  Air quality policy · Road transport environmental policy
• 2026-04-23 “E-000453/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The European Investment Bank’s (EIB) Water Resilience Programme is supporting the Commission’s Water Resilience Strategy, and it covers all EU 27 Member States, but also countries outside the EU (in particular in accession regions, Central Asia and the Southern Neighbourhood). The programme supports strategic water resilience infrastructure with blended finance structures, smaller municipalities, utilities and firms through intermediated lending, multi-borrower structures and guarantees. It also promotes the use of public-private partnerships and equity investment into water resilience. Project promoters, including Spanish authorities or public and private companies, can apply for advisory services as well as financial support, and the EIB will perform its financial and technical assessment of the proposal that could materialise in providing the requested financing. The EIB has supported many water projects in Spain in the last years 1 . Specifically, under the Water Resilience Programme, projects such as Canal de Isabel II for water infrastructure investment in the Community of Madrid (EUR 430 million), and Sabadell Flood emergency recovery (EUR 150 million) to finance the reconstruction following the severe floods in Spain, as well as preventive measures to enhance resilience against future floods were signed in 2025. The implementation of the projects is followed by the EIB in line with its internal rules and procedures. 1 https://www.eib.org/en/projects/all/index?q=&sortColumn=statusDate&sortDir=desc&pageNumber=0&itemPer Page=25&pageable=true&la=EN&deLa=EN&yearFrom=2024&orYearFrom=true&yearTo=&orYearTo=true&s tatus=approved&status=signed&orStatus=true&regions=europeanunion&orRegions=true&countries=ES&orCountries=true&sectors=2030&orSectors=true.”
  EU policy on water management
• 2026-04-20 “E-000565/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission Reform 1.3 ‘Reorganisation of the school system’, which aims to adapt the school system to demographic developments, is part of the Italian Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) under Mission 4, Component 1 as provided for by the revised Annex to the Council Implementing Decision (CID) on the approval of the assessment of the RRP 1 . In this context, the Commission recalls that it is a primary responsibility of the Member State to implement measures in line with the provisions set out in the CID. The latter does not prescribe the specific territorial configuration of school networks or the number or location of individual school mergers in each region. It is therefore for the relevant national and regional Italian institutions, in line with national and EU law, to define the parameters and procedures for school sizing, provided that the overall implementation remains in line with the requirements of the CID. In this regard, it should be noted that the Italian authorities have reported, within the framework of the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan 2 on the objectives for the reorganisation of the education system, which have enabled Italy to achieve the objectives set out in Reform 1.3 of Mission 4, Component 1. Article 174 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union requires the EU to promote economic, social and territorial cohesion and to pay particular attention to regions which suffer from natural or demographic weaknesses, including island regions such as Sardinia. Flexibility for addressing specific territorial challenges related to school access and early school leaving can be sought through the use and coordination of other EU instruments, such as the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+), the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and, where relevant, cohesion policy programmes targeting educational infrastructure and services. 1 CID of 25 November 2025 amending the Implementing Decision of 13 July 2021 on the approval of the assessment of the recovery and resilience plan for Italy, ST 15106/25. 2 https://reforms-investments.ec.europa.eu/italys-recovery-and-resilience-plan_en”
  Cohesion and rural funding
• 2026-04-15 “E-000457/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission In 2024, the Union adopted 146 files under the ordinary legislative procedure (82 basic acts and 64 amendments). It is usual for a higher number of adoptions by the European Parliament and the Council to take place in the last year of the legislative term. The Commission is pursuing an ambitious simplification agenda. This agenda has so far delivered in 2025 EUR 15 billion reduction of administrative costs through ten omnibus proposals and other simplification initiatives, which will reinject annual savings into the real economy. In 2026, half of Commission work programme legislative initiatives have a simplification dimension. This represents concrete progress towards the target to reduce administrative burdens by at least 25% and 35% for small and medium sized enterprises. Moreover, the Commission has deprioritised around 30% of the delegated and implementing acts initially planned for 2026. The Commission will present ideas on how to further improve regulatory simplicity in its upcoming Communication on Better Regulation. The choice of the legal instruments follows from the nature and scope of the intended policy objectives and the assessment of the proposed measures in the light of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, while also considering the widely-shared goal of facilitating implementation and reducing the barriers to the Single Market for businesses and citizens. The Union acts within the limits of the competences conferred by the Treaties (principle of conferral) and only if and in so far as the objectives of the proposed action cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States (principle of subsidiarity).”
  Transparency requirements of EU institutions · EU political integration
• 2026-04-10 “P-000734/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission continuously assesses the macroeconomic and social impact of pressing economic issues for the EU and the euro area. The Honourable Member is referred to the analytical chapters of Commission forecasts 1 , the Quarterly Report of the Euro Area 2 , Country reports 3 , in-depth reviews 4 , the Joint Employment Report 5 , analyses of social convergence 6 and other institutional papers and staff working documents 7 . On 25 November 2026, the Commission published its European Macroeconomic Report (EMR), which aims to inform and steer policy discussions to strengthen the EU economy. The EMR underpins the euro area recommendation 8 and complements the Alert Mechanism Report 9 and delves into macroeconomic challenges and vulnerabilities. 1 The Autumn 2025 Forecast https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/economic-forecast-and-surveys/economicforecasts/autumn-2025-economic-forecast-shows-continued-growth-despite-challenging-environment_en#boxes--autumn-2025 contained a special issues chapter on the macroeconomic role of the EU Emissions Trading System https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/trends-carbon-intensity-and-macroeconomic-role-eu-emissionstrading-system_en, and a box on spillovers to the EU from US tariffs imposed on third countries https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/spillovers-eu-us-tariffs-imposed-third-countries-model-basedsimulations_en. The Spring 2025 Forecast https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/economic-forecast-andsurveys/economic-forecasts/spring-2025-economic-forecast-moderate-growth-amid-global-economicuncertainty_en included a special issues chapter on the macroeconomic effect of US tariff hikes https://economyfinance.ec.europa.eu/economic-forecast-and-surveys/economic-forecasts/spring-2025-economic-forecastmoderate-growth-amid-global-economic-uncertainty/macroeconomic-effect-us-tariff-hikes_en. 2 The Quarterly Report on the Euro Area https://ideas.repec.org/s/euf/qreuro.html. Recent versions included articles on selected macroeconomic and social aspects of housing affordability https://ideas.repec.org/a/euf/qreuro/0241-02.html, the distributional impact of high inflation and the related policy response https://ideas.repec.org/a/euf/qreuro/0234-02.html and climate change and its implications for prices and inflation https://ideas.repec.org/a/euf/qreuro/0231-02.html. 3 The Country reports https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/document/download/fca1ebd8-9670-4482-906dba121c873112_en?filename=AT_CR_SWD_2025_220_1_EN_autre_document_travail_service_part1_v4.pdf. They provide a systematic assessment of economic developments and key policy challenges, innovation, business environment and productivity, decarbonisation, energy affordability and sustainability, and skills, quality jobs and social fairness for all EU Member States. 4 In-depth reviews https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/economic-governance-framework/macroeconomicimbalance-procedure/depth-reviews_en provide an assessment of macroeconomic imbalances for selected EU Member States. 5 Joint Employment Report https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/joint-employment-report-2025-0_en. 6 Social Convergence Framework https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/news/commission-analysessocial-convergence-10-eu-countries-2025-04-11_en. 7 Institutional papers written by Commission staff based on the QUEST model are linked here https://economyfinance.ec.europa.eu/economic-research-and-databases/economic-research/macroeconomic-models/questmacroeconomic-model_en, and based on the Global Multi-Country model here https://economyfinance.ec.europa.eu/economic-research-and-databases/economic-research/macroeconomic-models/global-multicountry-gm-model_en. 8 2026 Council recommendation on the economic policy of the euro area https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-5732-2026-INIT/en/pdf. 9 Alert Mechanism Reports https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/economic-governanceframework/macroeconomic-imbalance-procedure/alert-mechanism-report_en.”
  Defence spending · EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
• 2026-04-10 “P-000486/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 1. In its Commission Implementing Decision of 28 May 2025, the Commission concluded that milestone 215 was not satisfactorily fulfilled and, as a result, EUR 231 million was suspended in relation to that milestone 1 . 2. The Commission concluded that milestone 215 could not be considered satisfactorily fulfilled because, following the Romanian Constitutional Court’s Decision 724/2024 of 19 December 2024 2 , the new legislation on special pensions does not strengthen the contributory principle of the system and does not correct the inequities between beneficiaries of special pension categories and beneficiaries of the public pension system from the point of view of the contributory aspect. 3. Following the Commission Implementing Decision of 28 May 2025, Romania had six months to address the shortcomings identified by the Commission. On 28 November 2025, the Romanian authorities submitted documentation on four suspended milestones, including milestone 215, which the Commission is currently assessing. Pursuant to Article 24(8) of the Recovery and Resilience Facility Regulation 3 , once the Commission has completed its assessment, it will communicate its findings to the Romanian authorities. Romania will then have two months to submit its observations before the Commission proceeds with any final decision. No decision to reduce the financial contribution has been taken at this stage. 1 See the Commission Implementing Decision of 28.5.2025 on the authorisation of the disbursement of the third instalment of the non-repayable support and the third instalment of the loan support for Romania https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/647a956c-b008-4a82-96519f87286a2ad1_en?filename=C_2025_3487_1_EN_ACT_part1_v3.pdf. The relevant assessment and conclusions related to milestone 215 are in recitals 9, 121-129, and 155-158. 2 See the Romanian Constitutional Court’s Decision 724/2024 of 19 December 2024 https://www.ccr.ro/wpcontent/uploads/2025/02/Decizie_724_2024.pdf. 3 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/241/oj/eng.”
  EU Supervision of the Rule of Law · Conditions to access EU budget
• 2026-04-08 “E-000456/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 1. The Commission works hand in hand with the Member States, based on the principles of subsidiarity and the conferral of competences. The Commission as guardian of the Treaties must monitor the compliance with EU law, including notably to ensure the integrity of the Single Market to the benefit of European citizens and companies across all Member States. At the same time, the Commission is pursuing an ambitious regulatory simplification agenda. 2. The use of digital tools, including artificial intelligence, could support this mission by enhancing the efficiency and objectivity of compliance monitoring. The use of such tools will assist, not replace the substantial assessment of each individual case to be performed by the Commission services under the authority of the College of Commissioners. 3. Under Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union, the EU operates within the limits of competences conferred upon it, while other competences remain with Member States, thus they retain full responsibility for the implementation of EU law. The Commission’s role is to support Member States in fulfilling their obligations and, where necessary, to initiate enforcement action to address non-compliance. The Commission is committed to upholding the subsidiarity principle when proposing draft laws to the co-legislators; a thorough subsidiarity assessment is part of its Better Regulation agenda.”
  Transparency and oversight of AI-generated content · Rule of law and democracy in the EU (political compass)
• 2026-04-01 “E-000493/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission In line with the previous answers to written parliamentary questions E- P-2326/22 1 and E004476/2025 2 , the Commission emphasises that it has no information indicating that the professional independence of the Spanish National Statistical Institute (INE) was affected – neither in relation to the Spanish gross domestic product (GDP) data as revised in 2024, nor in relation to the decision by the President of INE to resign in 2022. The Commission has taken and will continue to take active steps to ensure full compliance with EU statistical law in all Member States, including continuing to safeguard the professional independence of statistical authorities. At the same time, it is worth recalling that the legal framework on European statistics 3 contains dedicated mechanisms such as statistical quality assessments 4 , which provide further reassurance on the integrity of national statistics. In addition, the European Statistical Governance Advisory Board provides an independent overview of the European Statistical System as regards the implementation of the European Statistics Code of Practice. Peer reviews are also regularly carried out within the European Statistical System and are publicised to facilitate public scrutiny 5 . 1 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-002326-ASW_EN.html. 2 https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/-ASW_EN.html. 3 Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics and repealing Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1101/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities, Council Regulation (EC) No 322/97 on Community Statistics, and Council Decision 89/382/EEC, Euratom establishing a Committee on the Statistical Programmes of the European Communities, OJ L 87, 31.3.2009, p. 164; ELI: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2009/223/2024-12-26. 4 See https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/european-quality-standards and in particular https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/4031688/8717565/KS-02-17-428-ES-N.pdf/36a448bd-c76d-46b9-85f835e0e3ae1473?t=1520260462000. 5 See https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/peer-reviews/third-round.”
  Rule of law in Spain
• 2026-03-30 “Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 30.3.2026 Written question In 2022, Statistics Finland revised the statistical treatment of the interest subsidy loans granted by the Finnish Housing Finance and Development Centre (ARA). This revision did not apply to the separate loan guarantee scheme administered by ARA under the Act on State Guarantees for Rental Housing Loans (856/2008). As a result, these State Guarantees are not included in Finland’s Maastricht debt. They are reported separately for information, as contingent liabilities not impacting debt. The revision was agreed with the Statistical Office of the European Union, which confirmed that the statistical recording complies with the rules on sector classification under the European System of Accounts (ESA 2010) and the Manual on Government Deficit and Debt.”
  EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
• 2026-03-26 “E-000263/2026 Answer given by Commissioner Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission recognises the importance of tackling regional disparities in Italy regarding access to healthcare, and monitors these issues, especially within the framework of the European Semester. In line with the objective of supporting access to primary healthcare services, especially in regions where access is more difficult, Mission 6 of the Italian recovery and resilience plan (NRRP) 1 includes, amongst others, several measures aimed at improving territorial healthcare assistance. In particular, it establishes a new organisational model for the territorial healthcare network and it further supports the investments needed for its full implementation. The Commission services are in constant dialogue with the Italian authorities regarding the implementation of the Italian NRRP. While the Commission assesses the fulfilment of the milestones and targets envisaged in the Council Implementing Decision (CID) for the Italian NRRP and ensures coordination, monitoring, and support in implementing its measures, the national authorities remain primarily responsible for implementing their Plan as detailed in the CID Annex. 1 Annex to the Council Implementing Decision amending Implementing Decision of 13 July 2021 on the approval of the assessment of the recovery and resilience plan for Italy, https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-15106-2025-ADD-1/en/pdf.”
  Public and private sectors role in healthcare services
• 2026-03-26 “E-000322/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Recovery and Resilience Facility is a performance-based instrument in which the Commission makes payments to the Member States based on the achievement of specific milestones and targets measuring the Member State’s progress to implement specific investments and reforms. In order to ensure the national ownership in the design and implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs), the responsibility to propose reforms and investment falls under the remit of national authorities. The Commission’s responsibility is to assess the compliance of the Spanish RRP, including investments related to the railway network, with the criteria set out in Regulation (EU) 2021/241 1 . The full list of investments and reforms that Spain selected and committed to undertake is set out in the Annex to the Council adopted the Council Implementing Decision (CID) of 13 July 2021 on the approval of the assessment of the recovery and resilience plan for Spain 2 . In particular, investments related to railway infrastructure and to works to be implemented on the railway network can be found under component 1 (Low-emission areas and transformation of urban and metropolitan transport) and component 6 (Sustainable mobility – Long Distance). 1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/241/oj/eng. 2 https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/023c40c3-e2d0-4b78-84b09b0cb45da21b_en?filename=COM_2025_794_1_EN_ACT_part1_v3.pdf.”
  EU support of rail transport · EU funding for transportation
• 2026-03-16 “E-000316/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 1. The EU Treaties have conferred to the Commission the role of guardian of the Treaties. Decisions on the opening and pursuing of infringement cases are the Commission’s prerogative and are taken by the College, based on the principle of collegiality, after detailed analysis of the facts and laws at stake. 2. The Commission attaches great importance to ensuring transparency of its enforcement policy and decisions 1 . Its 2016 and 2022 Communications on enforcement 2 set out the criteria that underpin the Commission’s strategic approach to enforcement and the various tools used for this purpose. This Commission has reinforced its reporting to co-legislators on the enforcement of EU law. Every Commissioner has published an Annual Progress Report on Simplification, Implementation and Enforcement, transmitted to the relevant Committees of the European Parliament and configurations of the Council 3 . The individual reports have been complemented by an Overview Report adopted by the Commission on 21 October 2025 4 . 3. The Commission’s enforcement actions are guided by the Commission’s strategic approach referred to in reply to the second question of the Honourable Member. 1 A public register of infringement cases and press releases (https://ec.europa.eu/implementing-eu-law/searchinfringement-decisions/?lang_code=en&langCode=EN) informs about the progress of individual cases while an Europa website (https://ec.europa.eu/implementing-eu-law/home/en) on infringement cases, pre-infringement dialogues and transposition of directive provides easily accessible statistical data with customisable graphs. 2 ‘EU law: Better results through better application’ of 19 January 2017 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/?uri=oj:JOC_2017_018_R_0002) and ‘Enforcing EU law for a Europe that delivers’ of 11 October 2022 (https://commission.europa.eu/document/b75864f0-8516-4ff0-9e2a-c3e8a557bbfb_en). 3 The Annual Progress Reports are available on a dedicated website on Europa (https://commission.europa.eu/law/law-making-process/better-regulation/simplification-andimplementation/2025-annual-progress-reports-simplification-implementation-and-enforcement_en). 4 The Overview Report (https://commission.europa.eu/publications/2025-overview-report-simplificationimplementation-and-enforcement_en) was presented to the Committee on Legal Affairs by Commissioner Dombrovskis on 4 December 2025.”
  Rule of law and democracy in the EU (political compass) · Transparency requirements of EU institutions
• 2026-03-12 “E-004157/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 1. Directive 2014/24/EU on Public Procurement establishes the framework to enable fair market practices, providing the Commission the power to monitor and enforce compliance among Member States. Through the EU Financial Regulation 1 , the Commission is also tasked with ensuring proper use of EU funds, which includes verifying the adherence to procurement standards to promote transparency and efficiency in spending. The Commission holds the competency to investigate irregularities in the funding process and, if relevant, refer cases to competent investigative bodies 2 . The Joint Communication on strengthening EU economic security 3 encourages Member States and partners implementing national or EU budgets to prioritise support to EU businesses that reduce foreign dependencies in critical sectors. 2. The Commission’s main responsibility is to assess whether Member States have fulfilled the milestones and targets set in their Recovery and Resilience Plans (RRPs). The implementing body of the respective Member States is responsible for setting the rules for allocation of RRP grants at national level and for their implementation. The call for proposals 4 states that when awarding contracts funded by the subsidy, Czech Act No. 134/2016 Coll. on public procurement must be complied with 5 . Milestones and targets funded under the Recovery and Resilience Facility are closely monitored for compliance with public procurement, competition and funding rules. The Commission may also conduct audits of milestones and targets, including those associated with the implementation of the project in question, based on risk assessments. Should any irregularities emerge, the Commission will work with Czech authorities to address and rectify the issues. Where further examination is warranted, the Commission is prepared to engage relevant investigative bodies. 1 https://commission.europa.eu/publications/eu-financial-regulation_en. 2 Investigative bodies such as the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO). Additionally, for high-value tenders, Regulation (EU) 2022/2560 on foreign subsidies provides a mechanism for the Commission to scrutinise and address instances where bidders might gain an unfair advantage due to foreign subsidies, thereby safeguarding the integrity and competitiveness of the internal market. 3 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52025JC0977. 4 Call for applications under which the 'Support for Schools in the Context of Digitalisation’ project was awarded. 5 Additionally, Member States are required to ensure an effective internal control system, to regularly verify the proper use of the funds and the proper implementation of reforms and investments in accordance with the legislation for the protection of the financial interests of the EU.”
  EU industrial funding
• 2026-03-04 “E-004716/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission In line with the Merger Regulation 1 , the Commission assesses the impact that a notified transaction has on effective competition. In the final decision adopted on 13 February 2026, the Commission concluded that the Universal Music Group (UMG) may gain access to commercially sensitive data on Downtown’s software Curve and the remedies submitted by UMG fully address these concerns. Based on evidence and feedback collected from many stakeholders during its investigation, the Commission concluded that the transaction does not raise other competition concerns. In particular, the investigation confirmed the existence of various competitors, including Sony, Warner, Believe and other independents. The press release is available on the Commission’s website 2 . On 12 November 2025, the Commission adopted a Communication on a new Culture Compass for Europe (COM(2025) 785 final) that sets out a strategic vision and recognizes the need to address the pressing challenges facing the cultural and creative sectors. Among the key priorities, it aims at empowering artists and cultural professionals and leveraging Europe’s culture and cultural heritage to enhance competitiveness, resilience and social cohesion. The Compass also identifies concrete flagship actions supporting cultural and creative professionals, such as developing an EU Artist Charter and an AI strategy for the cultural and creative sectors. The Commission has also invited the European Parliament and the Council to consider agreeing and co-signing a Joint Declaration (COM(2025) 786 final) that aims to strengthen the political commitment to support Europe’s cultural and creative sectors and industries, as an integral part of the EU’s identity and development. 1 Council Regulation (EC) No 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 on the control of concentrations between undertakings, OJ L 24, 29.1.2004, pp. 1–22. 2 https://competition-cases.ec.europa.eu/cases/M.11956.”
  EU and national cultural identities
• 2026-03-02 “E-000136/2026 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission’s publications and geographical visualisations focus on the EU and the continent ‘Europe’. To produce maps and cartographic visualisations, the Commission uses internationally agreed standards and good practices, complemented with authoritative geospatial data from Member States 1 . Any mapping choice depends on the context (e.g. geographical scope and purpose of the map) and no single, perfect solution exists as any projection deforms some parts of the world. While acknowledging the importance of equitable projections, in its publications and websites, the Commission uses the most appropriate cartographic projections. At the same time, the Commission follows the ongoing global geopolitical discussions and assesses the different practices and methodologies of cartographic projections including the ones like Equal Earth. Beyond the Commission’s mapping and visualisation practices, the EU’s role under Article 165 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union is limited to supporting, coordinating and supplementing the actions of the Member States. Responsibility for the content of teaching and the organisation of education systems lies exclusively with the Member States. Accordingly, decisions concerning the choice of pedagogical materials, including the use of specific cartographic projections in educational resources, fall within the competence of national and, where applicable, regional authorities. 1 The current mapping practice of the Commission is based on the European Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection (ETRS89-extended / LAEA Europe - EPSG:3035 – https://epsg.io/3035), because it preserves areas and minimizes distortion for European territories. This mapping projection was implemented also in the INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC (as Data Specification on Coordinate Reference Systems – Technical Guidelines: https://knowledge-base.inspire.ec.europa.eu/publications/inspire-data-specification-coordinate-referencesystems-technical-guidelines_en), which is enriched with some other projection recommendations for various specific use cases.”
  EU and national cultural identities
• 2026-02-16 “E-004628/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The independence of national fiscal authorities is safeguarded by the Directive on requirements for budgetary frameworks of the Member States, as amended in April 2024 1 , which complements the independence safeguards provided in Regulation (EU) No 473/2013 2 . Member States had to transpose the new or amended provisions of the Directive by the end of 2025. The Commission will undertake a transposition check in 2026. In compliance with existing EU legislation, and as further underlined in the amended Directive 2011/85/EU, the Spanish authorities must ensure that the Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility is autonomous and has the necessary resources to fulfil its tasks. The Commission will monitor the continuous compliance with the pension commitments of the recovery and resilience plan as reflected in the Council Implementing Decision 3 in the context of the subsequent payment request. 1 Council Directive (EU) 2024/1265 of 29 April 2024 amending Directive 2011/85/EU on requirements for budgetary frameworks of the Member States. 2 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2013/473/oj/eng. 3 https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-13695-2023-ADD-1-REV-1/en/pdf.”
  EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
• 2026-02-04 “E-004730/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission In June 2023, the European Commission adopted the Single Currency Package 1 , which includes two legislative proposals: one establishing a legal framework for a digital euro 2 , and another strengthening the legal tender status of euro banknotes and coins 3 . The digital euro proposal aims to complement cash by ensuring that people and businesses have an additional choice to pay digitally using a widely accepted, low-cost, secure, and resilient form of central bank money in the euro area. It is designed to coexist with, and complement, cash and private digital payment solutions. In parallel, the proposal on the legal tender of cash seeks to safeguard the continued role of euro banknotes and coins, ensure their wide acceptance as a means of payment, and maintain easy access to cash for citizens and businesses across the euro area. Accessibility and inclusivity are core objectives of the digital euro. The Commission’s proposal includes specific requirements in Articles 14(3) and 22 to ensure broad access and usability, notably for vulnerable groups. The proposed digital euro would be intermediated: it would be issued by the European Central Bank (ECB) and distributed to users through supervised payment service providers (PSPs). To mitigate potential risks to financial stability, the proposal also includes safeguards in Article 16. This article requires the ECB to develop instruments to limit the use of the digital euro as a store of value and to determine their parameters and application within the regulatory framework. 1 https://finance.ec.europa.eu/publications/digital-euro-package_en. 2 COM(2023) 369 final. 3 COM(2023) 364 final.”
  Digital euro financial inclusion · Digital euro holding limits
• 2026-02-02 “E-004476/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission Spanish gross domestic product (GDP) data have been published by Eurostat following the standard validation procedures in place for all Member States. The revisions of GDP in Spain published in 2024 were in line with the methodology provided for in Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts (ESA 2010) 1 . They were due to the implementation of a regular benchmark revision of national accounts and balance of payments done in a coordinated way in all Member States, carried out at least once every five years to incorporate new data sources and major changes in international statistical methodology. The impact of the revisions on Spanish nominal GDP of 1.6 % (average per year over 20202023) was within the range of -3.8 % and 6.8% observed for the other Member States. The average revision of the annual real GDP growth rates was 0.3 percentage points in Spain (average per year over 2020-2023) while the average revision for Member States varied between -0.4 percentage points and 1.1 percentage points. The Commission continuously monitors compliance by the Member States with EU legislation. The most relevant legislation in this particular context is Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics 2 , mentioned by the Honourable Members. This Regulation establishes the statistical principles, including the principle of professional independence, which are further elaborated in the European Statistics Code of Practice 3 . As the Commission noted in its reply to written question P-002326/2022 4 , it does not have any information indicating that Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 would have been violated in relation to the decision by the President of the Spanish National Statistics Institute to resign in 2022. 1 Regulation (EU) No 549/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 May 2013 on the European system of national and regional accounts in the European Union, OJ L 174 26.6.2013, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2013/549/2025-09-01. 2 Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics, OJ L 87, 31.3.2009, p. 164, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2009/223/oj. 3 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/quality/european-quality-standards/european-statistics-code-of-practice. 4 P-002326/2022 - https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/P-9-2022-002326-ASW_EN.html.”
  EU Supervision of the Rule of Law · Rule of law in Spain
• 2026-01-26 “E-004531/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission Tables 35 and 36 of the annex of the European Economic Forecast Autumn 2025 respectively provide the interest expenditure and the primary balance observed in recent years for all Member States 1 . In 2025, based on the Commission autumn 2025 forecast, most euro area countries have a primary deficit (it reaches 1.2% for the euro area as a whole) and therefore fully finance their interest expenditures via new debt issuances. Conversely, Ireland, Greece, Cyprus and Portugal are expected to have sufficiently large primary surpluses to finance their interest expenditure without issuing new debt. Finally, while Italy and Spain have primary surpluses, those are smaller than their interest expenditure, with the excess being financed by new debt. On average over 2008-24, the euro area as a whole recorded deficits in both the primary balance and the budget balance (-1.1 and -3.3% of GDP respectively) (see Annex 1). The capacity to finance interest expenditure is one of the factors determining fiscal sustainability. The debt level and its expected dynamic over time is another key aspect to consider. In that respect, the differential between the average interest rate the government pays on its debt and the growth rate of the economy is a crucial variable for debt dynamics. A negative differential supports debt reduction, while a positive differential has the opposite effect. Over 2008-24, the differential has been negative, although clearly narrowing at the end of the period (see Debt Sustainability Monitors available online) 2 . 1 The report is available here: https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/publications/european-economic-forecastautumn-2025_en. Moreover, annual series are available are avaible in DG ECFIN AMECO database: https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/economic-research-and-databases/economic-databases/amecodatabase_en. 2 The latest report, the 2024 DSM, is available online: https://economy-finance.ec.europa.eu/publications/debtsustainability-monitor-2024_en.”
  EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
• 2026-01-08 “E-002903/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 1. The Commission enforces EU laws and upholds the Treaties, as ‘guardian of the Treaties’. Infringement procedures are a bilateral process between the Commission and the central government of the Member State concerned. The Member State alone is responsible under Article 258 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union for compliance with the obligations arising under EU law. There are currently 69 ongoing infringement procedures against Italy. Since 2012, Italy has paid EUR 1.2 billion following judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union in infringement procedures imposing financial sanctions against Italy 1 . The Commission publishes press releases on all important decisions in infringement procedures, providing key information on the specific case, including on the involvement of regions, where particularly relevant. Ongoing infringement procedures with recent decisions that involve the region of Sicily concern the implementation of electronic tolling 2 and the management of the spread of invasive alien species 3 . In March 2025, the Court of Justice imposed financial sanctions against Italy over urban waste water treatment 4 . 2. The Commission ensures a high level of transparency and public information of its enforcement action. Apart from a press package with every infringement cycle, all infringement decisions are published in a public register 5 , updated in real time. In April 2025, the Commission launched a new Europa webpage 6 that offers more user-friendly information on infringement cases, including maps and customisable graphs. As regards financial sanctions, it is the prerogative of the Court of Justice of the European Union to determine and impose them on Member States, based on a request by the Commission. The amounts are published in the Court’s judgments. The Commission’s public register also makes it possible to search infringement cases in which sanctions have been imposed. 1 Payments relate to ongoing and closed cases, and amounts are definitive only after the exhaustion of all legal remedies. 2 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/inf_25_2745. 3 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/inf_25_1241. 4 For failing to comply with its collection and treatment obligations for four agglomerations, three of which are in Sicily, cf. Case C-515/23. 5 https://ec.europa.eu/implementing-eu-law/search-infringementdecisions/?typeOfSearch=byCase&activeCase=true&langCode=EN. 6 https://ec.europa.eu/implementing-eu-law/member-state-infringement-cases/en.”
  Transparency requirements of EU institutions · EU engagement with civil society
• 2026-01-08 “E-003769/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission is closely engaged in the monitoring of railway investments and their implementation progress through the assessment of Italy’s payment requests for the completed milestones and targets under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). In this regard, the Commission published its preliminary assessment 1 . Based on the information available to the Commission, the Avellino project is not among those that Italy intends to report under the RRF payment requests. However, given the performance-based nature of the RRF, Italy has room to include these projects when submitting a payment request considering that for railway projects the performance is measured by the number of km built. The milestones and targets related to railway investments in Italy are part of payment requests to be submitted by Italy in 2026. Member States remain primarily responsible for the implementation of their recovery and resilience plans as approved by the Council, as well as for verifying that the financing provided has been properly used in accordance with all applicable rules. 1 https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/economic-recovery/recovery-and-resiliencefacility/country-pages/italys-recovery-and-resilience-plan_en#documents.”
  EU funding for transportation · EU support of rail transport
• 2026-01-08 “E-004269/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission To date, France has submitted four out of the five payment requests under its recovery and resilience plan (RRP) 1 . All related milestones and targets were positively assessed, and the Commission paid France a total of EUR 34.1 billion 2 , including prefinancing, out of the EUR 40.3 billion of total non-repayable support committed under the French RRP. The comprehensive set of reforms and investments under the French RRP are expected to have a significant positive economic impact, improving gross domestic product (GDP) growth and increasing productivity and potential GDP in the medium and long run 3 . Furthermore, French companies also benefit from the economic activity triggered by the RRPs of other Member States, further increasing the positive impact of the overall implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) on the French economy 4 . Overall, the direct and indirect impact of the RRF on France’s economy is estimated to reach EUR 57.5 billion, largely exceeding the size of the French RRP. The funds made available to Member States for the RRF are financed from NextGenerationEU (NGEU) 5 . The repayment of NGEU grants is borne by the Union budget and the current Own Resources decision sets out legal requirements that must be complied with, including a complete repayment by 2058. Within these legal parameters, the Commission proposal for the next Multiannual Financial Framework (2028-2034) proposes a fixed annual debt of EUR 21.3 billion on average in 2025 prices for the EU budget to cover both interest costs and capital repayment. To cater for the repayment of NGEU and ensure the sustainable funding of EU common policies, the Commission also proposed the introduction of new own resources which will help modernise and diversify the sources of revenue for the EU budget. 1 https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/economic-recovery/recovery-and-resiliencefacility/country-pages/frances-recovery-and-resilience-plan_en. 2 Further information can be found on the RRF scoreboard: https://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/recovery-andresilience-scoreboard/index.html. 3 Further information can be found in the mid-term evaluation of the RRF: https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive-agencies/economic-and-financialaffairs/evaluation-reports-economic-and-financial-affairs-policies-and-spending-activities/mid-term-evaluationrecovery-and-resilience-facility-rrf_en. 4 https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/8b16b77c-3a92-40eb-b540eaef8bf16e13_en?filename=250620_RRF_impact_France_v11.pdf. 5 With the exemption of the REPowerEU chapters which are also financed from Emission Trading Scheme allowances and Brexit Adjustment Reserve transferred by the Member States.”
  EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets · Size of EU budget
• 2026-01-06 “P-004346/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission prepares impact assessments where the expected economic, social or environmental impacts of the proposal are likely to be significant, for major spending programmes, and where there is a policy choice. In the preparation of the next multiannual financial framework, the Commission has carried out seven impacts assessments supporting 17 legislative proposals and four ex-ante evaluations, in line with the better regulation principles. The Commission’s commitments on better regulation do not mean that an impact assessment should accompany all proposals under ordinary legislative procedure. Presenting statistics on this basis therefore does not give an indication of follow-up to the commitment made in the Interinstitutional agreement on better law-making 1 . The Commission is committed to evidence-informed policymaking and prepares its proposals in line with its own principles, consistent with paragraph 17 of the Interinstitutional agreement on better law-making. When an impact assessment is due, but for urgency reasons it cannot be prepared, the Commission publishes a staff working document presenting all the evidence supporting the proposal within three months of its adoption. Moreover, certain policy proposals do not warrant the preparation of an impact assessment because either the impacts are not expected to be significant or there is no policy choice (for example, when integrating international rules into EU legislation). The staff working documents prepared instead of impact assessments contain the relevant analysis supporting the proposals. All relevant staff working documents are publicly available. The Commission is fully committed to evidence-based policy making, implementing the Interinstitutional agreement. It calls on the co-legislators to do the same and assess the impacts of their substantial amendments to Commission proposals. 1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/agree_interinstit/2016/512/oj/eng.”
  EU political integration
• 2026-01-06 “E-004515/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission welcomes the Court’s analysis, which confirms that around two-thirds of business-environment challenges were addressed in the recovery and resilience plans (RRP) and that almost all completed reforms delivered their expected outputs, with some already showing significant results. The Regulation establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF Regulation) 1 does not require every business-environment challenge to be fully covered. Each plan must address ‘all or a significant subset’ of country-specific recommendations, taking into account each Member State’s allocation, structural challenges and national context. Member States may therefore have prioritised addressing other policy challenges while improving the business environment through national measures. The Commission supports and closely monitors RRP implementation, with businessenvironment reforms generally well advanced. Further implementation will provide additional evidence, although structural reforms typically take time to translate into measurable outcomes, and many relevant measures have only recently been completed. Gaps in observable results to date therefore reflect timing rather than lack of progress. The Commission will continue to assist Member States in delivering RRF measures and will follow up beyond 2026 through the European Semester. Looking to the next multiannual financial framework, the Commission has proposed instruments that continue coherently linking reforms and investment, supporting a more competitive and resilient EU business environment. 1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/241/oj/eng.”
  Overall simplification of regulation in the EU (free access) · EU industrial funding
• 2025-12-23 “E-003981/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission Article 6 of Regulation 473/2013 requires all euro area Member States to submit by 15 October to the Commission and to the Eurogroup a draft budgetary plan for the forthcoming year. This deadline allows the Commission to issue an Opinion on the submitted draft budgetary plan as soon as possible and in any event by 30 November. This timeline allows EU's policy guidance to be appropriately integrated in the national budgets before those are finalised 1 . The above provision is consistent with the budgetary timeline envisaged by the same Regulation (Article 4) that requires that ‘…The draft budget for the forthcoming year for the central government and the main parameters of the draft budgets for all the other subsectors of the general government shall be made public annually not later than 15 October…’. The submission of a draft budgetary plan to the Commission is meaningful only when it corresponds to a draft budget at the national level. On 2 October 2025, the Commission proposed to amend Regulation 473/2013 2 . The amending regulation proposed by the Commission specifies that the submission of a draft budgetary plan at unchanged policies is not needed in case a government is not in a position to prepare a draft budget law for adoption by the national parliament. The Commission expects that the Spanish government will submit its draft budgetary plan for 2026 as soon as a draft budget law is prepared for adoption by the national parliament. The Commission keeps monitoring fiscal developments in Spain, and has considered all relevant policy measures when preparing its Autumn 2025 forecasts. 1 Pursuant to Article 7(2) of Regulation (EU) No 473/2013 in case of particularly serious non-compliance of the draft budgetary plan with the budgetary policy obligations laid down in the Stability and Growth Pact the Commission opinion shall be issued within two weeks of the submission of the draft budgetary plan. 2 Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and Council amending Regulations (EU) No 1173/2011 and (EU) No 473/2013 (COM(2025) 591 final).”
  EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
• 2025-12-22 “E-003963/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission is aware of the growing concerns regarding knife incidents in schools across various Member States. However, the collection and analysis of data regarding specific crime types, including knife attacks, fall primarily under the jurisdiction of Member States. The Commission does not maintain a centralised record of knife attacks in schools. Instead, it relies on national authorities to provide relevant statistics, which can then be collected for broader analyses. The statistical office of the European Union (Eurostat) does not have access to data on knife attacks in schools, therefore it is not possible to evaluate any trends of this crime. Eurostat collects statistics on crime and criminal justice in the Member States annually, on voluntary bases, focusing on criminal offences as set-out in the international classification of crime for statistical purposes (ICCS) 1 . Data on police-recorded offences are disseminated in the Eurostat database 2 . Knife attacks could be included under intentional homicide (ICCS code 0101) and serious assault (ICCS code 020111) 3 . Preventing violence and radicalisation among young people is a priority for the Commission. Through the EU Knowledge Hub on Prevention of Radicalisation 4 and the EU Internet Forum 5 , Member States and practitioners exchange experiences and develop guidance on preventing youth violence and addressing harmful online and offline influences that can lead to radicalisation, including in schools. These actions strengthen the capacity of teachers and youth workers to identify early signs of violence and foster inclusion, critical thinking and resilience. They complement Member States’ primary responsibility for school safety and crime prevention. 1 ICCS is available at https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/statistics/iccs.html. 2 Eurostat online database: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/crim_off_cat/default/table?lang=en&category=crim.crim_off. 3 More information on crime statistics is available on Eurostat webpage: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/crime/overview. However, separate data on the number of criminal offences or number of victims of knife attacks in schools are not available. 4 https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/networks/eu-knowledge-hub-prevention-radicalisation_en. 5 https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/networks/european-union-internet-forum_en.”
  Asylum & border control · EU policy on criminal justice
• 2025-12-10 “E-004085/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission In line with Regulation (EU) 2021/241 1 , the financial contribution allocated to Italy under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is disbursed if the milestones and targets set out in the Annex to the Council Implementing Decision on the approval of the assessment of the Recovery and Resilience Plan for Italy (CID Annex) are satisfactorily fulfilled 2 . The consolidation and restoration of the Garisenda Tower may be reported by Italy as part of the final target in the context of Investment 2.4: ‘Seismic safety in places of worship, restoration of “Fondo Edifici di Culto” (Fund for Religious Buildings) heritage, and shelter sites for works of art (Recovery Art)’. The Commission has not yet assessed the fulfilment of the target against the requirements specified in the CID Annex, including compliance with the established timeline as Italy has not yet submitted the corresponding payment request. Member States remain primarily responsible for the implementation of their Recovery and Resilience Plans as approved in the CID Annex, as well as for verifying that the financing provided has been properly used in accordance with all applicable rules. 1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021R0241. 2 https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-9587-2025-INIT/en/pdf.”
  EU strategy for tourism development · Cohesion and rural funding
• 2025-12-01 “E-003875/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The European Investment Bank (EIB) is a Multilateral Development Bank governed by the EU Member States as its shareholders and established under the EU Treaties. According to Article 16 of its Statute 1 , the Bank’s primary mission is to support the balanced development of the EU, while it may also operate outside the EU in accordance with policy directives adopted by the Council. In practice, around 90 % of the EIB’s financing takes place within the EU and roughly 10 % outside it. The EIB activities outside the EU are mostly carried out under mandates conferred by the EU – notably through the European Fund for Sustainable Development+ (EFSD+). External operations are not financed by EU debt, but by the Bank’s own resources backed by the EU guarantees and they serve to advance the Union’s external policy objectives, including stability in the neighbourhood, sustainable development, and the promotion of EU economic interests abroad. The Commission works with the EIB Group to reflect EU priorities in the Group’s activity, including industrial competitiveness, innovation, and energy independence. The EIB’s 20242027 Strategic Roadmap 2 approved by its shareholders is well aligned with the Political Guidelines for the European Commission 2024-2029 3 and outlines eight key interrelated priorities: climate action, digitalisation, defence, cohesion, agriculture and bioeconomy, social infrastructure, high impact investments outside the EU, and Capital Markets Union development. 1 https://www.eib.org/en/publications/20250065-statute-and-other-treaty-provisions. 2 https://www.eib.org/en/publications/20240198-eib-group-2024-2027-strategic-roadmap. 3 https://commission.europa.eu/document/e6cd4328-673c-4e7a-8683-f63ffb2cf648_en.”
  EU industrial funding · EU Development & Humanitarian Aid
• 2025-11-28 “E-003862/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Stability and Growth Pact has been fundamentally revised with the reform of the EU governance framework adopted in April 2024. The reformed framework aims at promoting sound public finances and sustainable growth through investment and reforms. Under the new framework, Member States’ fiscal policies are based on their own mediumterm fiscal-structural plans. The fiscal paths put forward in the plans should aim at bringing and maintaining the government deficit below 3 % of gross domestic product (GDP) over the medium term and putting Member States with the general government debt above 60% of GDP on a plausibly downward path by the end of the adjustment period. Member States may opt for a longer adjustment period, up to 7 years instead of the normal 4 years, underpinned by commitments to relevant reforms and investments. In light of the heightened security concerns, in March 2025 the Commission communicated that Member States have the possibility to request the activation of the national escape clause envisaged in the revised Stability and Growth Pact, to support an increase in defence expenditure 1 . This flexibility is temporary (until 2028) and capped at 1.5% of GDP to safeguard debt sustainability. 1 C(2025) 2000 final of 19 March 2025.”
  Defence spending · EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
• 2025-11-28 “E-003836/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission First of all, it should be recalled that the European Investment Bank (EIB) is the EU multilateral development bank which is owned by the 27 Member States who are its shareholders. The EIB thus has its own governing structures in place and it is governed by its own statute and internal rules, including Code of Conduct. Secondly, when entrusting EU funding under indirect management, the Commission relies on EIB systems, rules and procedures which have been pillar assessed pursuant to Article 157 of the Financial Regulation. The assessment includes the respect of integrity and ethical values (i.e. code of conduct and procedures to deal with possible conflicts of interest at management level) as part of an effective and efficient internal control system. The members of the management committee of the EIB, referred to in the question by the Honourable Member, are subject to a Code of Conduct 1 of the EIB. It provides, inter alia¸ rules for different kinds of conflict of interest situations, including a cooling-off period of 24 months after the employment at the EIB (see in particular Article 6.2 of the Code of Conduct). According to this Code of Conduct, former members of the management committee are entitled to perform profitable occupational activities with any other entity unless these would raise conflicts of interest and reputational risks for the EIB, which could not be duly mitigated. The Code of Conduct also contains detailed rules on procedure to be followed by former members of the management committee regarding employment during the cooling-off period. Against this background, a prior approval by the Ethics and Compliance Committee is required, unless the future employment falls under certain specific categories defined in the Code of Conduct. Even in the latter case, information to the Chair of the Ethics and Compliance Committee is required. 1 Code of Conduct of the Management Committee https://www.eib.org/files/publications/code_of_conduct_mc_en.pdf.”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• 2025-11-25 “E-004045/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 1. Greece has so far received more than 50% of its Recovery and Resilience Fund (RRF) allocation, more than the average across the EU Member States 1 . By end October 2025, EUR 9.94 billion had been disbursed to Greece in grants (55% of the total grant allocation) and EUR 11.4 billion in loans (64% of the total loans allocation). An additional EUR 2.1 billion is expected to be disbursed still this year, following the positive assessment by the Commission of the 6 th payment request for grants, which will bring the total grant disbursement to 66.1% of the total grant allocation. 2. The Commission closely monitors progress with the implementation of the recovery and resilience plans (RRP) in all Member States. The most common reasons for delays across all Member States, including Greece, are changes in external circumstances, such as increased inflation and supply disruptions, legal and practical difficulties arising from the implementation of measures, and delays related to public procurement 2 . Greece’s allocation under the RRF amounts to almost 16% of its gross domestic product, and the Commission has been working closely with the Greek authorities to facilitate the absorption of these funds and the timely completion of projects. 3. In its Communication ‘NextGenerationEU – The road to 2026’ 3 , the Commission has provided guidance to support Member States in planning ahead for the submission of the last payment requests in 2026, emphasising the importance of streamlining their recovery and resilience plans. As many Member States still need to fulfil a significant number of milestones and targets, efforts are on-going to simplify the RRPs and adhere to the established timelines, while complying with all requirements of the RRF Regulation 4 . 1 COM(2025) 637 final – Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility. 2 European Court of Auditors, Special report on Absorption of funds from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (2024). 3 COM(2025) 310 final/2 – NextGenerationEU – The road to 2026. 4 Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 February 2021 establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, OJ L 57, 18.2.2021, p. 17.”
  Cohesion and rural funding
• 2025-11-25 “E-003569/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 1. Pursuant to Article 22 of Regulation (EU) 2021/241 establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) 1 , Member States are primarily responsible for protecting the financial interests of the EU. In Italy, the body designated to audit the RRF funds is distinct and independent from the Italian Court of Auditors. This body is the Organismo indipendente di audit del Piano Nazionale di Ripresa e Resilienza (PNRR), (Ufficio XIII), within Ispettorato Generale per il PNRR, located within the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Nonetheless, the Italian Court of Auditors is part of the governance of the national recovery and resilience plan. The Italian Court of Auditors may carry out ex post audits on a risk basis and on the expenses linked to the RRF (not on the satisfactory fulfilment of milestones and targets). The Commission will assess the compatibility of this reform, which aims to boost the effectiveness of administrative action by mitigating the chilling effect associated with the risk of liability 2 , with obligations laid down in Article 22 of the RRF Regulation once the bill is adopted. 2. Once a Member State adopts provisions that may relate to its audit and control arrangements, the Commission reassesses these arrangements in light of the requirements established by the Regulation, and may launch system audits, review reports or corrective measures if needed. If these arrangements are considered inadequate, the Commission may downgrade the rating of the RRP from ‘A’ to ‘C’ against the criteria 2.10 of Annex V of Regulation 2021/241, in which case no more payment can be made to the Member State until the related weaknesses or deficiencies have been addressed. 3. See the reply to the second question that provides an overview of supervisory and intervention tools at disposal of the Commission to assess Member States’s audit and control arrangements. 1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/241/oj/eng. 2 https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/9ccf6a60-8e2f-4193-868b30a24c9e37e0_en?filename=16_1_63949_coun_chap_italy_en.pdf.”
  Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• 2025-11-21 “E-003579/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission has taken unprecedented action to reduce burdens and avoid new ones. The Commission has introduced stress tests so that each Commissioner screens all existing legislation to identify inefficiencies and obsolete or redundant obligations that cumulatively weigh on companies. This is done using input from stakeholders, including through implementation dialogues and reality checks with companies and administrations directly applying EU rules. Moreover, when preparing new legislation, a reinforced competitiveness check explores the current competitive position of the sectors most affected by the proposal to avoid introducing new burden on sectors under stress due to the cumulative impacts of regulation or other factors. The reduction of excessive burdens including reporting obligations is an essential aspect of the Commission’s competitiveness agenda. The Commission has set highly ambitious targets to reduce administrative burdens by at least 25% and by at least 35% for small and mediumsized enterprises (SMEs). Meeting the goal requires cutting recurring administrative costs by EUR 37.5 billion by the end of the mandate with dedicated measures for SMEs. Since February 2025, the Commission has put forward six omnibus proposals bringing over EUR 8 billion annual costs savings including sustainability reporting, investments, small middle capitalisation companies, agriculture, defence and chemicals. These proposals include specific measures to relieve SMEs and are currently being negotiated by the co-legislators.”
  Climate efforts
• 2025-11-21 “E-003926/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Polish Recovery and Resilience Plan includes investments aiming to supply schools in Poland with state-of-the-art multimedia equipment for teachers and students. When it comes to the public procurement process, including the translation of any requirements from the Annex to the Council Implementing Decision 1 in the tenders, this lies within the competence of the Polish authorities. The Commission will verify the fulfilment of the requirements of the related milestones and targets included in the Council Implementing Decision in the preliminary assessment of payment requests, which has not yet taken place for the investment in question. 1 https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/71559ea5-b36e-4342-a4c5960257549d0f_en?filename=COM_2025_284_1_EN_annexe_proposition_cp_part1_v3.pdf.”
  EU policy on sustainability criteria in public funding · Conditions to access EU budget
• 2025-11-20 “E-001702/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission will not comment on developments with respect to the chairmanship of the World Economic Forum. It is the sole responsibility of the World Economic Forum to investigate alleged breaches of its own rules and codes of conduct. The Commission condemns racism, misogyny or any other expression of hatred, and has put forward respective strategies to achieve a Union of Equality 1 . The Commission has a zero-tolerance approach towards misuse of EU funds as well as a proactive approach to promote diversity and inclusion in its workplace. 1 https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/combattingdiscrimination/racism-and-xenophobia/eu-anti-racism-action-plan-2020-2025_en; https://commission.europa.eu/document/99cc0720-68c2-4300-854f-592bf21dceaf_en; https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/genderequality/gender-equality-strategy_en; https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-andfundamental-rights/combatting-discrimination/lesbian-gay-bi-trans-and-intersex-equality/lgbtiq-equalitystrategy-2020-2025_en; https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamentalrights/disability/union-equality-strategy-rights-persons-disabilities-2021-2030_en.”
  EU foreign policy approach
• 2025-11-20 “E-003543/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission Euro cash has legal tender status in the EU 1 . In its proposal on the legal tender of euro banknotes and coins 2 , the Commission emphasizes the need to ensure sufficient and effective access to cash, as without it, citizens cannot use cash for payments and its legal tender status would be undermined. For the same reason, access to various cash services should be ensured, in particular cash withdrawals and cash deposits on payment accounts of credit institutions. Pending the entry into force of the regulation, the Commission expects Member States to abide by the principles set out in the final report of the 3 rd Euro Legal Tender Experts Group 3 . While non-binding, these principles were endorsed by all Member States. The principles emphasise that measures should be taken, where appropriate, that ensure that credit institutions holding payments accounts for citizens and businesses continue to provide essential banking services throughout the euro area. Furthermore, while other possible channels for cash withdrawals and deposits outside the banking sector, such as cash-back in shop, have the potential to complement the cash services of banks, their inherent limitations exclude that they could work as a replacement of ATM networks or cash services at bank branches. Therefore, ELTEG concluded that these solutions do not relieve banks from their social role to provide adequate cash services to citizens and business customers, with the needed geographical coverage. To ensure financial inclusion, Article 16(1) of the Payment Accounts Directive (PAD) 4 requires Member States to ensure that all credit institutions or a sufficient number of credit institutions offer payment accounts with basic features (PABF) to consumers. Article 17 establishes a list of services that need to be provided for a PABF, including services enabling cash withdrawals 5 . On the basis of the information available to the Commission, the relevant national law transposing PAD requires that all credit institutions that offer payment accounts to consumers have to offer payment accounts with basic features. Whether a decision by a credit institution not to provide cash services to their clients is in line with EU law (and the national law transposing EU law) needs to be assessed in each individual case and is a responsibility of the national competent authorities, which the Commission will contact to clarify the situation. 1 Article 128 (1) TFEU lays down the legal tender status of euro banknotes, and article 11 of Regulation EC/974/98 does so with regard to euro coins. 2 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52023PC0364. 3 https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/expert-groups-register/screen/expertgroups/consult?lang=en&groupId=3754&fromMembers=true&memberType=4&memberId=93719. 4 Directive 2014/92/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on the comparability of fees related to payment accounts, payment account switching and access to payment accounts with basic features (OJ L 257, 28.8.2014, p. 214, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/dir/2014/92/oj). 5 Article 17(1) point c refers to ‘services enabling cash withdrawals within the EU from a payment account at the counter or at automated teller machines during or outside the credit institution’s opening hours.”
  Means of payment (cash vs digital) · Cash as means of payment
• 2025-11-20 “E-003785/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission Following discussions in the Eurogroup, where Member States expressed their wish to reach an agreement on the proposed Regulation on the digital euro 1 in a timely manner, the Danish Presidency has stated its intention to seek a general approach in the Council. The Commission is supportive of this goal. The proposed Regulation is technology-neutral and hence does not prescribe any specific technical solutions for the digital euro infrastructure. Within the framework of the Regulation, which defines the essential elements of the digital euro, the European Central Bank (ECB) is responsible for decisions on technological aspects and implementation. The ECB has recently published the outcome of its public procurement procedures for subcontractors, whose input will inform its decision-making process. Safeguarding the privacy of digital euro users remains of paramount importance. The Commission and the ECB have repeatedly underlined that the digital euro aims to provide stronger privacy protection than existing private payment instruments. In particular, the offline payments will ensure cash-like privacy, meaning that only the two parties involved in a transaction will have knowledge of it and its details, and for the online payments, when the ECB settles these payments, it will not know the identity of the users involved. The proposed Regulation sets out strict rules governing the use of personal data by payment service providers and the ECB. It explicitly stipulates that the ECB will have no access to data that can identify the individual, while payment service providers will be permitted to access personal information necessary for customer due diligence, anti-money-laundering measures, and fraud prevention. 1 COM/2023/369 final, herein referred to as the proposed Regulation.”
  Means of payment (cash vs digital) · Digital euro
• 2025-11-14 “E-003704/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission acknowledges the significance of data related to the horse sector for a deeper understanding of this industry and its importance in policy development. The breeding and raising of horses, donkeys, mules, and hinnies are classified under code A.01.43 of the Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Union (NACE Rev. 2.1) 1 and are included in the definition of an agricultural holding according to Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 2 . However, support activities such as stud services, animal boarding, and care, as well as the rental of animals and operation of riding stables, are excluded from this definition. This distinction highlights that only a portion of the European Equidae population can be surveyed through the integrated farm statistics under the current legal framework. The Commission is working on a proposal to amend Regulation (EU) 2018/1091. As part of this initiative, stakeholders will be invited to share their views with the aim to strike a balance between new information needs and limiting the administrative burden on respondents. 1 Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Revision 2 and amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 3037/90 as well as certain EC Regulations on specific statistical domains (OJ L 393, 30.12.2006, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2006/1893/oj), as subsequently amended and supplemented. 2 Regulation (EU) 2018/1091 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 July 2018 on integrated farm statistics and repealing Regulations (EC) No 1166/2008 and (EU) No 1337/2011 (OJ L 200, 7.8.2018, p. 1, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2018/1091/oj).”
  Agricultural funding
• 2025-11-14 “E-003834/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Do-No-Significant-Harm (DNSH) principle applies to the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility 1 . However, it does not apply to projects funded through national resources, including the National Complementary Fund. Without prejudice to the Commission’s role as guardian of the Treaties, Member States are primarily responsible for ensuring that specific financed projects comply with Union and national law, including the environmental acquis. They are also responsible for aligning waste infrastructure with the targets and waste hierarchy in line with the EU directives 2 . 1 https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/economic-recovery/recovery-and-resilience-facility_en. 2 Directive 2008/98/EC on waste, OJ L 312 22.11.2008 as amended; Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the landfill of waste as mended.”
  EU policy on sustainability criteria in public funding · Circular economy
• 2025-11-11 “E-003381/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The European system of national and regional accounts (ESA 2010) requires that all economic activities are recorded, provided that all units involved enter the actions by mutual agreement. This obligation also covers some illegal activities. The Handbook on the compilation of statistics on illegal economic activities in national accounts and balance of payments 1 provides a common definition of illegal economic activities and guidance for collecting and compiling the related statistics in a consistent and coordinated way. The Handbook is explicit: ‘prostitution services that do not have the characteristics of an economic transaction, i.e. those not based on mutual agreement; must be excluded from the measurement’ (§3.4, p. 33). Trafficking, coercion and exploitation are thus not reflected in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and other macroeconomic statistics. National authorities use information from law enforcement, health services and specialised organisations to ensure this distinction. The same principle applies to employment. Only people who voluntarily provide services are treated as employed for statistical purposes. Neither traffickers nor persons forced into prostitution are counted as employed in macroeconomic statistics. Including certain illegal activities in macroeconomic statistics is a technical requirement to ensure that GDP and other figures are consistent and comparable. The regulation of prostitution is a competence of the Member States. 1 As the Handbook on the compilation of statistics on illegal economic activities (Eurostat/ECB, 2018) further explains, statisticians view these activities ‘from a purely statistical perspective (…) to ensure comparability between and within countries over time’ (Foreword, p. 3) – https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-manualsand-guidelines/-/KS-05-17202#:~:text=The%20present%20Handbook%20represents%20the%20first%20comprehensive%20overview,nati onal%20accounts%20%28NA%29%20and%20balance%20of%20payments%20%28BOP%29.”
  Gender roles, equality and inclusion
• 2025-11-10 “E-003796/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission In its Communication ‘NextGenerationEU – The road to 2026’ 1 , the Commission has encouraged Member States to explore all available options to safeguard their grant envelope under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), while ensuring that the supported reforms and investments continue to deliver on EU priorities and comply with the requirements of the RRF Regulation 2 . The Communication outlined a number of options, such as the use of financial instruments, equity injections in national promotional banks and institutions, as well as voluntary contributions to EU Satellite programmes or to other projects serving digital priorities. Voluntary national contributions from the RRF to the future European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP) can also be an option that helps to address the urgent needs to strengthen military capabilities and increase the defence readiness of the EU. The Commission has therefore encouraged the co-legislators to introduce a provision to allow for such contributions during the EDIP trilogues. Such contribution would be in line with the objective of the RRF to increase the level of the EU’s crisis preparedness and enable a quick and effective EU response in the event of major emergencies. Similar to contributions to the Member State compartments under the InvestEU Programme, such voluntary contributions to EDIP would constitute the investment under the RRF, to be achieved by 31 August 2026 in line with the deadline set in the RRF legal framework. The supported projects would be identified through the EDIP work programmes and under the governance of that instrument. The Commission is working with Member States to ensure a smooth and successful closure of the RRF. 1 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council, NextGenerationEU - The road to 2026, COM(2025) 310 final/2. 2 Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 February 2021 establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, OJ L 57, 18.2.2021, p. 17.”
  EU industrial funding · Defence spending
• 2025-11-06 “P-003798/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission Eurostat is aware of the growing number of patchwork families. To collect more detailed information on different family types within social surveys 1 , it is compulsory to collect the household grid, i.e. all the relations among household members. The household grid can be collected at low level or at high level of detail. Based on the information collected at high level of detail, it is possible to identify patchwork families. Countries are obliged to collect the household grid only at low level of detail 2 , and only a limited number of countries provide highly detailed information. Additionally, within the European statistics on income and living conditions 3 , in 2021, information on ‘Children living in separated or blended families’ 4 was collected on ad hoc basis. However, due to sample limitations, it was only possible to disseminate the percentage of children having one parent living outside of the household, which, in 2021, in the EU, it was of 12.7% 5 . Currently, considering the growing need for information on patchwork families, Eurostat is reflecting on how to encourage Member States to collect household grid at high level of detail, thus allowing a better understanding of living conditions of such families. The Commission is working together with the Social Protection Committee to develop adequate monitoring and benchmarking frameworks to support and track EU social developments, such as those related to the European Child Guarantee. While there are difficulties in providing more granular information, the Commission encourages Member States to make use of administrative data collected for reporting on the implementation of the European Child Guarantee, including on access of children in precarious family situations to key services. 1 Under Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 October 2019 establishing a common framework for European statistics relating to persons and households, based on data at individual level collected from samples, OJ L 261I, 14.10.2019, p. 1, http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/1700/oj. 2 According to Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2181 of 16 December 2019 specifying technical characteristics as regards items common to several datasets pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council, OJ L 330, 20.12.2019, p. 16, http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2019/2181/oj. 3 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/income-and-living-conditions/information-data. 4 Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2242 of 16 December 2019 specifying the technical items of data sets, establishing the technical formats and specifying the detailed arrangements and content of the quality reports on the organisation of a sample survey in the income and living conditions domain pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/1700 of the European Parliament and of the Council, OJ L 336, 30.12.2019, p. 133, http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg_impl/2019/2242/oj. 5 Estimation with low precision because of low sample size or high non-response rate.”
  Support for families
• 2025-11-06 “E-003484/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission As part of its Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) 1 , Greece committed to boost the supply and quality of irrigation water and to rationalise its consumption through the construction of irrigation networks infrastructure and a reform of the institutional, organisational and operational framework of the collective irrigation networks (measure 16285). The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2 supports irrigation projects, with the Greek CAP Strategic Plan 2023-2027 providing up to EUR 260 million 3 , while the EU Cohesion Policy does not finance irrigation projects as such. In 2023 and 2025, Greece requested to revise the scope of the RRP measure, in line with the rules of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) 4 , and the number of irrigation networks to be supported was reduced. The reason for this revision was higher than expected costs, delays due to technical or legal impediments, and a lack of market interest. The Commission understands that some of these projects are now pursued outside the scope of the RRP. According to the latest version of the RRP 5 , five irrigation network projects are to be completed through public-private partnership schemes (milestone 316). This is the only milestone related to this RRP measure (16285), and it is part of the final RRP payment request, which is expected by mid-2026. The Commission has thus not yet assessed this milestone, nor disbursed corresponding funds, at this stage. In addition to this measure, the RRF and EU Cohesion Policy also support Greece to improve its water infrastructures to enhance sustainable water management. 1 https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/economic-recovery/recovery-and-resiliencefacility/country-pages/greeces-recovery-and-resilience-plan_en#repowereu-measures-in-greeces-plan. 2 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/2115/oj/eng. 3 EU contribution for interventions P3-73-1.1 and P3-73-1.4 https://www.agrotikianaptixi.gr/category/sskap2023-2027/sskap-egkrisi-tropopoiiseis/. 4 eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32021R0241. 5 https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/372bdb38-3fd1-47f6-80478e21a8a38533_en?filename=COM_2025_367_1_EN_annexe_proposition_cp_part1_v3.pdf.”
  Agricultural funding · EU policy on water management
• 2025-10-29 “P-003683/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Commission is aware of media reports regarding the implementation of the project related to the electronic monitoring bracelets for the protection of victims of gender-based violence in Spain. The measure is included in the Spanish Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) under milestone 472 (Investment in telephone services and online services to support victims of violence against women), which will be assessed by the Commission in the context of the eighth payment request. The assessment of milestone 472 has not yet taken place as Spain has not submitted the related payment request. The Commission will therefore assess the implementation and fulfilment of this milestone only at the time of the eighth payment request, based on the evidence provided by the Spanish authorities. The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is a performance-based instrument. This means that payments are made only once the requirements of the milestones and targets, as reflected in the Council Implementing Decision, have been assessed as satisfactorily fulfilled. Under the RRF Regulation, Member States are responsible for the implementation of their RRPs, including the award and management of contracts financed under the Facility. This includes ensuring that all procurement and contractual procedures fully comply with applicable EU and national law.”
  Rule of law in Spain · Gender roles, equality and inclusion · Accounting and auditing of EU budget
• 2025-10-22 “E-003402/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission It is the duty of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the euro area national central banks to ensure that euro banknotes remain an innovative, secure and efficient means of payment. Developing new series of banknotes regularly is standard practice for all central banks. Beyond security considerations, the ECB is committed to reducing the environmental impact of euro banknotes, while also making them more relatable and inclusive for all Europeans 1 . The Commission considers the ECB's initiative to involve the public in the euro banknote design process to be a positive approach to increasing transparency and citizen engagement in the decision-making process. As a sign of its commitment to safeguarding cash, the Commission put forward a legislative proposal on the legal tender of cash in the ‘Single Currency Package’ 2 to ensure the widespread acceptance of and access to cash, alongside its proposal establishing the legal framework for the possible issuance in future of a digital euro. On the introduction of the digital euro, the Commission and the ECB are committed to ensuring the highest standards of privacy and data protection. Online payments would be subject to the highest privacy standards under current Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism rules and the Eurosystem would never be able to identify individual users. The proposal furthermore requires offline payments to be offered to users as of the first issuance of the digital euro. This version of the digital euro allows users to pay in proximity, even in absence of connectivity, with transactions to be settled directly on the device and with the transactions remaining fully anonymous. 1 https://www.ecb.europa.eu/euro/banknotes/future_banknotes/html/index.en.html. 2 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_3501.”
  Means of payment (cash vs digital) · Digital euro
• 2025-10-17 “E-003265/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The projects relate to measure 16289: ‘Strategy for Excellence in Universities & Innovation’ of Greece’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) 1 . Following Greece’s request to modify its RRP, the project ‘Trust Your Stars’ was removed from the RRP as approved by the Council on 17 July 2025. The Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) 2 is a performance-based instrument. The only condition for RRF payments to Member States is the satisfactory fulfilment of milestones and targets. Pursuant to Article 22 of Regulation (EU) 2021/241, Member States are primarily responsible for the protection of the financial interests of the EU under the RRF. They must put in place an effective and efficient internal control system and ensure that the use of EU funds complies with EU and national rules. For each payment request, national authorities must submit a management declaration that the funds were used for their intended purpose and that the control systems give the necessary assurances that the funds were managed in accordance with all applicable rules. In Greece’s RRP’s management and control framework, the implementing bodies (such as ministries or other public authorities) are responsible for the implementation of RRP measures, while ensuring compliance with EU and national rules. Based on Greece’s information, for measure 16289, the Commission has positively assessed the first milestone (M147), which required issuing approval decisions for certain projects. The second and final milestone (M150) that concerns the completion of the projects will be assessed by the Commission during the RRP’s ninth payment request. 1 https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/economic-recovery/recovery-and-resiliencefacility/country-pages/greeces-recovery-and-resilience-plan_en. 2 https://commission.europa.eu/business-economy-euro/economic-recovery/recovery-and-resilience-facility_en.”
  Governance of academic priorities within the EU · Research priorities within the EU
• 2025-10-16 “E-003433/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission France has been subject to an Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) since July 2024. On 21 January 2025, the Council adopted a recommendation for France with a net expenditure path aimed at correcting its excessive deficit by 2029. France should report on the effective action at least every 6 months 1 . France submitted its first Annual Progress Report in April 2025. Following the Commission’s assessment, the Council concluded 2 that the projected deviation from the recommended net expenditure growth in 2025 was small (below 0.3% of GDP) while the cumulative growth rate of net expenditure, when taking 2024 and 2025 together, was projected to be below the recommended maximum growth rate. Thus, the EDP for France was held in abeyance. The next assessment will take place with the Commission’s opinion on the French Draft Budgetary Plan, to be submitted by 15 October 2025. The Commission is conducting fiscal surveillance of Member States based on the agreed legal framework, adhering to the principles of equality and transparency. The provisions governing the implementation of the excessive deficit procedure are laid down in Article 126 TFEU and further specified in Regulation (EC) No. 1467/97. The effective action will be assessed based on the net expenditure indicator and its deviations from the net expenditure path to which France committed. The excessive deficit procedure will be abrogated once France brings its headline deficit durably below 3% of GDP. 1 Council Recommendation 5033/1/25 of 21 January with a view to bringing an end to the situation of an excessive deficit. 2 Council Recommendation 10970/25 of 1 July 2025 on the economic, social, employment, structural and budgetary policies of France.”
  EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
• 2025-10-15 “E-002966/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission The Stability and Growth Pact’s deficit reference value of 3% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been breached since its inception in various instances, in particular during periods of economic downturn 1 . During the 2009-2010 economic and financial crisis, 24 out of 27 Member States entered an excessive deficit procedure due to non-compliance with the deficit criterion. By 2018, all Member States had corrected their excessive deficits. Significant deviation procedures were opened for Romania (2017-2019) and Hungary (2018-2019) due to non-compliance with the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact. An excessive deficit procedure was opened for Romania in early 2020. After the COVID-19 pandemic, excessive deficit procedures were opened for eight additional Member States (Austria, Belgium, France, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Poland and Slovakia) due to their deficits in excess of the 3% of GDP reference value. 2 The Commission has so far not proposed financial sanctions in the context of the Stability and Growth Pact. In most cases, Member States acted upon the recommendations of the Council before the procedure reached the stage of sanctions. In 2016, Spain and Portugal failed to take effective action to correct their excessive deficits. The Commission proposed the cancellation of the fine to be imposed for both Member States following a reasoned request by the Member States concerned. Both proposals were adopted by the Council. One of the objectives of the revised economic governance framework that entered into force last year is precisely to enhance Member States’ ownership, compliance and enforcement, including through a more gradual system of financial sanctions. 1 For a full analysis, see the Commission’s Staff Working Document accompanying the 2020 review of the economic governance framework (SWD(2020) 210 final): https://economyfinance.ec.europa.eu/document/download/90074c4d-6bcd-4ee1-be53ceb17c6bc548_en?filename=swd_2020_210_en.pdf. 2 An overview of ongoing and closed excessive deficit procedures can be found here: https://economyfinance.ec.europa.eu/economic-and-fiscal-governance/stability-and-growth-pact/corrective-arm-excessivedeficit-procedure/excessive-deficit-procedures-overview_en.”
  EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets
• 2025-10-10 “E-002967/2025 Answer given by Mr Dombrovskis on behalf of the European Commission 1.The Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) concerns national budgets, which include Member States’ contributions to and transfers from the EU budget. Loans provided to Member States are considered Member State debt towards the EU and accounted in Member States statistics. 2.The SGP concerns Member States own fiscal positions and does not concern the EU budget, including joint contingent liabilities. The Commission manages the financial implications of joint EU borrowing efficiently. Loans to Member States are provided under attractive conditions providing relief to Member State budgets. For the borrowing for grants under NextGenerationEU which is to be repaid by the EU budget, the Commission has proposed for the next multiannual financial framework a fixed annual amount of EUR 24 billion per year in current prices.1 This approach ensures full predictability as regards the impact on Member States’ national budgets, which will help to respect the net expenditure path recommended by the Council. 3. For Member States for which the national escape clause for higher defence expenditure is activated, the national expenditure funded by loans provided by the SAFE instrument (Security Action For Europe) will automatically benefit from that flexibility.2 While access to SAFE loans is not conditioned on Member States’ compliance with the SGP, the Commission will continue to work with Member States to ensure coherence of the use of SAFE loans with the SGP. 1 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_25_1848. 2 Communication from the Commission: Accommodating increased defence expenditure within the Stability and Growth Pact, of 19.03.2025.”
  Size of EU budget · EU fiscal rules and oversight of national budgets