Taking place just a week ahead of the extraordinary European Council meeting on the 11th of March, the CEPS Annual Conference aims to make a timely contribution to the debate on economic governance of the EU. Participants will assess the merits of the controversial Franco-German proposal to forge a Pact for Competitiveness and evaluate the long-term proposals for European economic governance that will be on the agenda of the Spring Council at the end of the month.
We will debate these extremely consequential issues with Franciskus van Daele, who, as Head of Cabinet of President Van Rompuy, was closely involved in the work of the Economic Governance Task Force, Sylvie Goulard, MEP and Rapporteur on "Euro area: Effective enforcement of budgetary surveillance” (a centre piece of the legislative package on European economic governance currently before the Parliament) and CEPS Director, Daniel Gros. The session will be chaired by Stefano Micossi, Member of the CEPS Board of Directors.
In light of the fact that no less than half of the measures of the Pact for Competitiveness are pure single market issues, and hence apply to the EU as a whole, and that the relaunch of growth through the development of the full potential of the single market is a necessary precondition to exit the crisis, the second panel will dwell on the economic significance of this inner core of the European Union.
Prof. Mario Monti, author of the report A New Strategy for the Single Market, will discuss his proposals with Evelyne Gebhardt, MEP, member of the Internal Market and Consumer Affairs Committee, and former rapporteur on the Services Directive, and with Andrea Benassi, Secretary General of the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized enterprises, which were singled out by the report as one of the actors that stand to benefit the most from the proper implementation of the single market. The session will be chaired by Jacques Pelkmans, Senior Fellow at CEPS and Director for Economic Studies at the College of Europe.
The extreme timeliness of the issues on the agenda and the level of the speakers will no doubt make for an informative and substantial debate to which members of the audience are as usual encouraged to contribute.
