Requirement of a close to balance or in surplus position || Country specific MTO in structural terms: - Provide a safety margin with respect to the 3% deficit limit - Ensure rapid progress towards sustainability - Allow room for budgetary manoeuvre For euro area and ERMII MS: limits of -1% of GDP Expenditure benchmark: expenditure net of discretionary measures should grow ≤ medium-term potential GDP || 0.5% GDP as a benchmark: - More in good times - Less in bad times >0.5% if debt above 60% or if pronounced sustainability risks Temporary deviation from the adjustment path allowed if: - Implementation of major structural reforms with a verifiable impa ...[+++]ct on the long-term sustainability of public finances – emphasis on pension reform - Unusual event outside the control of the MS concerned with a major impact on its financial position - Severe economic downturn for the euro area or the EU as a whole provided this does not endanger medium term fiscal sustainability || Procedure for correcting significant deviation (0.5% in one year or cumulatively over 2 years from the MTO or the adjustment path it) For euro area: financial sanctions in case of repeated non-compliance (interest-bearing deposit of 0.2% of GDP)

H. whereas the crisis has demonstrated not only the interdependence between eurozone Member States but also the need for a more robust fiscal union, with effective mechanisms to correct unsustainable fiscal trajectories, macroeconomic imbalances, debt levels and the upper limits of budget balance of Member States;

H. whereas the crisis has demonstrated not only the interdependence between eurozone Member States but also the need for a more robust fiscal union, with effective mechanisms to correct unsustainable fiscal trajectories, macroeconomic imbalances, debt levels and the upper limits of budget balance of Member States;

It would be a pity if the EU and the GCC, as two major political and economic actors at world level, were to take diverging paths at a time when regional arrangements for stability are changing and global economic governance is being redefined.

(a) the medium-term objective for the budgetary position of close to balance or in surplus and the adjustment path towards this objective for the general government surplus/deficit; the expected path for the general government debt ratio; the medium-term monetary policy objectives; the relationship of those objectives to price and exchange rate stability;

(a) the medium-term objective for the budgetary position of close to balance or in surplus and the adjustment path towards this objective for the general government surplus/deficit and the expected path of the general government debt ratio;