Thank you, Minister. Good afternoon, everyone.
I will begin with some positive news.
Today, the EU is disbursing an additional €4.1 billion in financial support to Ukraine under the G7-led Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration Loans Initiative.
This marks the final instalment of the EUs €18.1 billion contribution to this initiative.
The success of the ERA loans initiative shows that Europe can act swiftly, decisively, and effectively when necessary.
It is in this spirt that we must also approach the question related to further funding needs for Ukraine.
We actually began todays meeting with a productive discussion on options for providing additional financial support for Ukraine, as requested by the European Council.
As the Minister already mentioned, the meeting saw broad support from Member States for the Commission to continue its work on the Reparation Loan.
There was wide recognition that this option is the most feasible means of quickly bridging Ukraines funding gap, without placing additional substantial fiscal burdens on Member States.
The continuation of this work obviously includes engaging with Member States to address remaining concerns.
We also discussed possible alternative options.
It has to be noted that given debt sustainability concerns and the challenges Ukraine is facing, the support has to have strong grant-like features.
So alternative option would be for the EU to fund the Reparation Loan to Ukraine through borrowing instead of using the cash balances associated with immobilised Russian assets.
However, Member States would have to cover the interest costs of the loan until its repaid to maintain grant-like support for Ukraine.
There are different modifications of how exactly this borrowing can be structured.
Yet another option would be to provide a similar level of support to Ukraine but in the form of grants, which would entail a large debt cost to Member States over a short period of time.
As regards the options paper, we should be able to present the options paper shortly.
Todays discussions will help to inform the Commissions thinking in this regard.
Its important in parallel to engage with our allies and like-minded partners to provide Ukraine with liquidity already in the first quarter of next year.
Ukraines financing needs are not only large, but also urgent.
We are under time pressure and must move forward in a constructive, pragmatic, and cooperative way.
On other topics, as the Minister has mentioned, today, we reached a significant political agreement to move forward with the elimination of the customs duty relief threshold for goods up to the value of €150 entering the EU.
And specifically, we agreed to find a workable solution to be implemented as soon as possible next year.
This responds to the increasing volume of goods sold online and directly shipped to customers in the EU from third countries, notably China.
In 2024 alone, 4.6 billion such items were imported, with 91% coming from China.
Charging customs duties on such consignments is an important step towards ensuring a level playing field for European businesses and further strengthening our Customs Union.
Moving to the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the Commission provided its regular update.
The clock is ticking.
Member States should now act swiftly to simplify their plans and remove measures that cannot be fulfilled by the deadlines and focus on implementation.
I therefore welcome todays endorsement of targeted amendments to the recovery and resilience plans of Belgium, Estonia, Luxembourg, Croatia, Slovakia, and Romania.
Then, the European Fiscal Board presented todays meeting with their insightful Annual Report.
The report analyses our collective effort to ensure a smooth transition to the new economic governance framework.
Overall, while there are some lessons to be learned, the rollout has been effective and the Focus should now turn to delivering the agreed fiscal paths.
On fiscal paths, the Commission will present its assessment on 25 November, as part of the European Semester Autumn Package.
Furthermore, I presented todays meeting with the European Commissions Overview Report on Simplification, Implementation and Enforcement.
Since the beginning of the year, the European Commission has presented six simplification omnibus proposals, including in agriculture, defence, due-diligence, and sustainability reporting.
A conservative estimate puts the annual savings stemming from these simplification proposals at more than €8.6 billion.
And more proposals will follow already in the coming weeks.
So, we have made a strong start, but we must work at least as intensively to reach our 25% overall burden reduction target and 35% burden reduction target for SMEs.
Finally, a few words on the 2025 Statistical Package, which Ministers adopted today.
The package sets out how the European Statistical System is taking action toward:
- improving the quality and availability of European economic indicators,
- collecting data on defence expenditure in a timelier manner, in the context of the national escape clauses,
- reducing administrative burdens for businesses and public administrations.
These efforts underline Europes commitment to high quality, independent official statistics, which remain as vital as ever for informed decision-making.
Thank you.
