5th ECOFIN Council

Here is the transcription of the doorstep of Belgian Deputy Prime minister and Finance minister Vincent Van Peteghem:

“Good morning, another interesting ECOFIN meeting today. First of all, we will talk about the financing needs of Ukraine. We will do that together with the Minister of Finance Marchenko, who will be also present at the video conference. I will be explaining the agreement that we have found on the windfall profits on the immobilised assets, which I think is important. It was a very difficult, very complex, technically complex agreement that we have found. But I think that it’s important that it’s also giving a very clear message that we continue – and we will continue – to stand with Ukraine.

Also, there are two important tax files on the table. We have FASTER (Faster and Safer Relief of Excess Withholding Taxes) and ViDA (VAT in the Digital Age), which are important files in the fight against fraud, but also in enhancing our Capital Markets Union. And there as well it will be interesting that we will have the Council conclusions on financial literacy. This is a discussion that we just started in Ghent during our informal ECOFIN meeting in February. We now also see that it will be important, if we further want to enhance our Capital Markets Union, to increase the financial literacy of our citizens.

Finally, also some conclusions on the ageing file and the aging report that was prepared. We all know the impact on our budget of ageing, the health care costs that will have a huge impact. And therefore I already said it for a couple of times that it will be important that we do some structural reforms in health care, in our tax, but also n our labour market. So, an interesting day, looking forward to it.”