Brussels: Europe and the Arabs 

The European Union institutions in Brussels announced that finance and economy ministers will continue their discussions today, Thursday, which began yesterday at the level of the Eurozone countries. The discussions will expand today with the participation of the remaining member states of the bloc, under the current Danish presidency of the EU. The Council will seek to reach a political agreement on eliminating the tariff threshold for goods entering the European Union.

The ministers will exchange views on the 2025 annual report of the European Fiscal Council, an independent advisory body established in 2015 to assess the implementation of the EU's fiscal framework and the fiscal position of the Eurozone.

The ministers will also exchange views on the Commission's annual reports on these topics.

The Council will hold a political discussion on the revision of the Energy Tax Directive. This revision aims to contribute to the EU's efforts to reduce emissions, improve the EU's internal market, and maintain revenue generation capacity for member states' budgets.

The Council is expected to adopt implementing decisions approving the revised recovery and resilience plans submitted by member states. Recovery and resilience plans allow Member States to draw on the EU Recovery and Resilience Fund, a financial support program that helps repair the economic and social damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ministers will exchange views on the current status of the economic and financial impact of Russian aggression against Ukraine. This is a recurring agenda item at the Economic and Financial Affairs Ministers' Meeting.

The Presidency of the Council and the Commission will brief Ministers on the key outcomes of the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting held on 15 and 16 October 2025 in Washington.

The Council will endorse the conclusions on progress made on the EU's statistical priorities, providing guidance for further work.

The Presidency will present an update on the legislative proposals relating to financial services.

An annual ministerial dialogue between the EU and the EFTA countries will take place prior to the Economic and Financial Affairs Council meeting. Ministers will be invited to exchange views on the theme "Stronger Together: Boosting Prosperity through Open Trade." The Presidency of the Council, the European Central Bank, the European Commission, and the President of the Eurogroup will meet with European social partners on November 12, 2025, to discuss the latest developments in the economic situation, as well as a key theme chosen by the Danish Presidency: "The importance of labor market reforms and human capital development in strengthening the competitiveness of the European Union."

Eurogroup Meeting

At the end of Wednesday's discussions, Eurogroup President Pascal Donohoe said, "We began by reviewing the latest macroeconomic updates from the Commission and the European Central Bank. Uncertainty remains high. However, the latest figures still point to the resilience of our economy, with better-than-expected economic growth in many parts of the eurozone and continued strong employment. Several colleagues briefed us on their ongoing budget negotiations, the key measures, and the challenges they face – a crucial part of our ongoing budget coordination. We will return to these issues at our meeting in December.

We then moved on to a broader and more interesting discussion about the challenges facing the eurozone in a global context. A year ago, we published the Eurogroup statement on competitiveness. But over the course of the year, we have seen a world changing at an accelerating pace. A wide-ranging discussion took place, in which we shared experiences on the concrete challenges we currently face regarding the different approaches taken by our main global counterparts in industrial policy, with a particular focus on China. One of the key findings was the lack of a level playing field and what this means in terms of the policy options available to us." At both the European and national levels.

This led to a discussion about the value of the work we can do on policy priorities in the euro area, and how this can help us navigate this challenging region. We will return to this topic again soon.

We continued our discussion on fiscal policy coordination and the role the Eurogroup can play in this regard. This is a topic we address every June and December. We are now working on ways to strengthen this role and address the short- and medium-term challenges that we are all better aware of.

We then continued our meeting in the Banking Union format, including the regular hearing with the President of the Supervisory Board of the European Central Bank and an update on the work of the Single Supervisory Mechanism. We heard excellent presentations on this subject from Claudia Boch and Dominique Laborix.

The reports were generally reassuring: the stress tests conducted this summer gave our banks a positive rating, but we recognize that the competitiveness of European banks remains essential.

We are working to strengthen this principle through high standards of financial stability, by carefully considering simplification measures, and by finding ways to encourage our banks to invest in Its long-term growth, particularly in the context of accelerating digitalization. As work on the crisis management framework nears completion, we will return to how to continue this work, starting with our meeting in December.

We then moved on to a comprehensive discussion about the future of digital finance. We reviewed all the work currently underway regarding the digital euro. It has been some time since the Commission submitted its proposal on this project.

Under the Danish Presidency, we are committed to reaching a common approach on this legislation by the end of the year. We heard from the European Central Bank and President Lagarde about all the efforts currently underway to ensure the success of the legislative work on the digital euro and thus translate this legal agreement into reality. A tremendous amount of work is being done in this regard.

We then continued our discussion on developments in stablecoins elsewhere in the world and on the opportunities for developing this sector within the euro area. We heard many views on the balance between opportunities and risks. This is a topic we will continue to work on. We will launch a series of working groups on it. The Eurogroup and our deputies will return to this issue.