Luxembourg – The Minister of Economy, Trade and Business of the Spanish Government, Carlos Cuerpo, proposed on Monday to create a coalition of countries to unite forces to unblock the union of capital markets due to the inability of the Twenty-Seven to advance in its architecture, which they have been working on since the economic crisis of 2008.
With this proposal, the Spanish minister picks up the baton of the plan detailed in February by the former French Minister of Finance, Bruno Le Maire, to establish a “voluntary” and “multi-speed” union.
“Spain wants to make a first contribution to this debate by putting on the table an innovative mechanism for making integration decisions quickly and effectively,” explained Cuerpo in statements to the media on Monday in Luxembourg, where he is participating in the meeting of eurozone Economy ministers, the Eurogroup.
The Spanish minister believes that “one of the great challenges” in responding to the report prepared by the former Italian Prime Minister, Mario Draghi, is “being able to carry out these recommendations efficiently to prevent them from ending up in a drawer.”
To this end, he has proposed the creation of an “innovative decision-making mechanism” which he called the ‘European Competitiveness Laboratory,’ so that “a minimum of three countries can put forward an integration project with the help and assistance of the European Commission,” which will then evaluate this pilot project and analyze whether to extrapolate it to the entire Twenty-Seven.
At the minister’s proposal, the first project to launch in the Laboratory would be the creation of a European Ratings System to facilitate the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) both within and outside their country of origin. (October 7)