The function of a European Minister of Economy and Finance

— From the Commission’s perspective, this would help to reduce the
increasingly complex governance of the EMU, strengthen policy
coordination and fiscal surveillance and bolster accountability towards the
European parliament. This “double-hatted” role would also be in charge of
overseeing the EU and euro area budgetary instruments, including (newly
created) stabilization functions. As the Commission argues, creating this
combined function is already possible under the current EU Treaties. They
propose to implement the function with the appointment of the next
Commission in 2019 together with an informal agreement of the Eurogroup
to elect the responsible Commissioner/Minister as its President for two
following (two-year) terms.

— Besides the symbolic value that the creation of an EU finance minister might
have for further EMU integration, the functional advantages of such a
position can be debated. As Guntram Wolff from the Brussels-based think
tank Bruegel pointed out a few days ago5, the position would be rather
toothless regarding both the enforcement of stronger fiscal discipline and
the provision of fiscal means. In addition, it would blur the separation
between the European Commission and European Council. As the
President of the Eurogroup also chairs the ESM Board of Governors, it
would also bring a future European Monetary Fund under close EC
coordination. It might therefore be more sensible to make – as also
proposed by Bruegel (and suggested in the Commission’s June paper on
EMU reforms6) – the Eurogroup President an independent full-time position
that would also report to the European Parliament (alongside the ECB
president).

This would allow the Eurogroup chairman to fill her or his
mandate undistracted from national responsibilities and would be a way give
the currently informal Eurogroup a formal status.