5. Member States shall specify which institution is responsible for producing macroeconomic and budgetary forecasts and shall make public the official macroeconomic and budgetary forecasts prepared for fiscal planning, including the methodologies, assumptions and relevant parameters underpinning those forecasts.

A crucial element in ensuring the use of realistic forecasts for the conduct of budgetary policy is transparency, which should entail the public availability not only of the official macroeconomic and budgetary forecast prepared for fiscal planning, but also of the methodologies, assumptions and relevant parameters on which such forecasts are based.

RECOGNISES the importance of public finance in supporting climate-related investments in developing countries, including adaptation measures in the most vulnerable and least developed countries; EMPHASISES the importance for accomplishing progress in the identification of sources of long-term finance. RECALLS the need to mobilize stable, predictable and additional revenues without putting fiscal consolidation and sustainability at risk, and STRESSES that it will be up to each Member State to determine the use of such public revenues in accordance with EU and national budget rules and in consistency with sound and sustainable public fina ...[+++]nces policy framework; In this context LOOKS FORWARD to the publication of the Final Report prepared for the G20 Finance Ministers meeting on Climate Finance Sources; RECOGNIZES the importance of this work aimed at progressing towards the implementation of options for expanding the flow of climate change finance to developing countries in pragmatic and cost-effective ways, and highlighting the important role that Multilateral Development Banks can play in leveraging greater private finance for climate change. INVITES the COP Presidency to seek agreement on a process to address conclusions and recommendations in an open and transparent manner to secure progress at COP17.

When presenting their new official forecast in March 2003, the French authorities projected real GDP growth in 2003 at 1.3% and an improvement in the cyclically-adjusted general government balance by 0.1 percentage point of GDP in 2003; whereas, in the same forecast, the general government deficit in France for 2003 was projected to reach 3.4 per cent of GDP.

The report, established at the request of the Council, reviews projections of the impact of ageing on public expenditure on pensions, health care and long-term care for the elderly up to the year 2050, and puts forward possible indicators to examine the overall long-term sustainability of public finances on the basis of these projections.

Instead, the forecasts suggest that the realisation of these objectives, especially in the field of public finances, will require additional measures which in most cases are already envisaged but not yet put forward in a concrete form and thus not incorporated in the present forecasts.