Remarks by Commissioner Dombrovskis at the ECOFIN press conference

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone.

Indeed, our final ECOFIN meeting of 2025 had a packed agenda.

I will begin with our most pressing priority.

Last night, I presented the Commission's legislative proposals to provide flexible, urgent and vital financing to Ukraine.

I outlined the strong guarantees and safeguards embedded in our reparations loan proposal.

These are in place to respond to concerns expressed by certain Member States, notably Belgium, and financial institutions to provide protection from possible retaliatory measures.

I also set out how the proposals are legally robust, in line with EU and international law, and underpinned by Ukraine meeting essential pre-conditions to receive the support.

I welcome the broad support expressed for this at yesterday's meeting.

We continue to work on addressing the concerns of certain Member States.

These exchanges provide a useful basis for next week's meeting of EU leaders where we must reach a clear commitment on the way forward.

Ukraine's needs are not only sizeable but also urgent.

So, I urge Member States to show unity and act now.

We also took stock of the state of play of the Single Currency Package.

Discussions have progressed well, paving the way for the Council general approach to be formalised shortly.

This is an important step and we now need to make the most of the current momentum to complete the legislative process and facilitate the necessary preparations for the introduction of the digital euro.

This is urgent and essential in light of the geopolitical environment.

At the last ECOFIN in November, we agreed to move forward with the removal of the customs duty exemption on low value parcels, and to work on a simple, temporary solution for calculating customs duties on these goods.

Following up on that, today Ministers have approved the imposition of a €3 duty on low value consignments.

This temporary solution will apply from July 2026 until the EU Customs Data Hub functionalities are ready, which may happen in 2028.

This represents an important step towards ensuring a level playing field for European businesses.

Commission services will work with Member States to help make the transitory measure legally and practically applicable.   

Moving now to fiscal surveillance.

I provided the Commission's assessment on effective action for the nine Member States in the Excessive Deficit Procedure.

For Romania, we acknowledged the significant fiscal measures adopted over the summer.

Therefore, the Commission will not, at this stage, propose a suspension of EU Funds under the macroeconomic conditionality procedure.

For Malta and Hungary, we see risks of deviations from the path recommended by the Council that require attention.

This may require a stepping up of the procedure in spring 2026.

I also presented the Commission's report under Article 126(3) assessing compliance with the deficit criterion.

It finds that the opening of an excessive deficit procedure for Finland is warranted.

The Economic and Financial Committee has confirmed this conclusion.

On that basis, the Commission has earlier today proposed the necessary procedural steps to establish the existence of an excessive deficit and issued a recommendation for Finland to put an end to the excessive deficit situation, including a corrective net expenditure path.

Moving to the Recovery and Resilience Facility, where we provided our regular update.

Entering the final year of the RRF should focus minds.

Today, I strongly encouraged Member States to accelerate implementation and simplify plans where possible.

I therefore welcome today's endorsement of targeted amendments to the recovery and resilience plans of 10 Member States: Austria, Cyprus, Czechia, France, Greece, Latvia, Malta, Poland, Portugal, and Slovenia.

We also had a useful exchange on the importance of closely monitoring the costs and benefits of EU legislation.

There I emphasised the importance of assessing the impact of substantial amendments introduced in the legislative process creating significant additional costs and burdens.

We welcome the conclusions adopted today on simpler and more effective financial regulation.

The Commission has also taken note of yesterday's recommendations from the ECB's Governing Council's High Level Task Force (HLTF) on Simplification.

Commission services are currently assessing these recommendations.

Of course, the most effective simplification efforts in this area will come from removing intra-EU barriers and creating a real Single Market for financial services.

On the Savings and Investments Union, the Commission's presented the market infrastructure and efficient supervision package which was adopted last week.

Our proposals seek to build a more competitive and effective financial services sector in Europe to stimulate growth and enhance competitiveness, and we call Member States to advance this important initiative.

To conclude, I would like to thank Minister Lose and the Danish Presidency for their commitment and professionalism over the past six months and for the significant progress you have made in advancing our common agenda and priorities.

Tusind tak!