Spring EU Summit: Bad Perspectives and More Austerity

Two are the main topics on the agenda of the spring EU summit on March 14-15 in Brussels: economic policy and external relations. The largest part of their time the leaders are expected to spend on economic policy as, according to the tradition, they will deal with the European semester. They will review the implementation of the country-specific recommendations for 2012, their commitments under the Euro Plus Pact, the national reform programmes, the implementation of the Europe 2020 strategy. Progress on the agreed last year growth pact will also be discussed. An important element of the talks will be work on the legislation that will allow the permanent rescue fund of the eurozone to lend directly to banks for recapitalisation.

Regarding foreign policy, on the agenda of the leaders is a review of relations with the strategic partners as attention is expected to be paid on the recently reached consent negotiations to start on a comprehensive trade agreement with the US. There will be no written conclusions on that topic.