EU national recommendations at a glance
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The commission's ideas range from fighting tax evasion to getting more women into jobs (Photo: ec.europa.eu)
By EUobserver
EUobserver's back-of the-envelope notes on Wednesday's country specific recommendations for 23 EU states.
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• Austria is not under the excessive deficit procedure
• Bring forward the harmonisation of pensionable age for men and women
• Speed up the restucturising of nationalised and party nationalised banks
• Remove excessive barriers for service providers
• Improve educational outcomes
• Belgium shall put an end to the present excessive deficit situation by 2013
• Pursue efforts to reform the wage setting system, including wage indexation
• Improve competition in the services sector
• Establish concrete and time-specific proposals for shifting taxes from labour to less growth-distortive tax bases
• Reduce disincentives to work
• Bulgaria is not under the excessive deficit procedure
• Fight tax evasion and welfare fraud, especially in disability benefits
• Try to get more older women back into work
• Improve the quality of higher education and the access to schools for Roma children
• Prevent "irregularities" in management of EU funds
• The Czech Republic is not under the excessive deficit procedure
• Scrap a scheme which lets people start drawing their pension five years before they retire
• Stamp out corruption in the civil service, including in the management of EU funds
• Put fewer people in hospital and get more to use day-clinics instead
• Reduce the number of professions which require minimum-length apprenticeships
• Ensure the correction of the excessive deficit by 2013
• Improve the employability of people at the margins of the labour market
• Implement the reform of primary and lower secondary education
• Remove obstacles to competition in the services sector
• Estonia is not under the excessive deficit procedure
• Get more women into work by offering state-sponsored childcare services childcare benefit
• Reduce the number of young and long-term unemployed by offering more vocational training
• Imposing a tax on petrol-guzzling cars and higher excise duties on petrol
• Finland is not under the excessive deficit procedure
• Increase the employment rate of older workers
• Enhance competition in product and service markets
• Boost capacity to deliver innovative products, services and high-growth companies
• Support the alignment of real wages and productivity developments
• France should reach a headline deficit of 3.9 percent of GDP in 2013, 3.6 percent in 2014 and 2.8 percent in 2015
• Take further action to lower the cost of labour
• Ensure that developments in the minimum wage are supportive of competitiveness and job creation
• Take action to enhance competition in services; remove unjustified restrictions in the access to and exercise of professional services
• Step up efforts to reduce and streamline personal and corporate income tax expenditures while reducing statutory rate
• Germany is not in excessive deficit procedure
• Complete the implementation of the debt brake in a consistent manner across all Lander
• Sustain conditions that enable wage growth to support domestic demand by reducing high taxes and social security contributions
• Remove disincentives for second earners and increase the availability of full time childcare facilities and all-day schools
• Hungary is no longer under the excessive deficit procedure
• Encourage banks to lend more foreign currency to businesses
• Make corporate tax "more balanced and predictable" by removing sector-specific taxes
• Remove regulatory barriers against foreign investors, especially in services and retail
• The excessive deficit situation in Italy has been corrected
• Simplify the administrative and regulatory framework for citizens and business
• Strengthen the legal framework for the repression of corruption
• Shift the tax burden from labour and capital to consumption, property and the environment
• Remove remaining restrictions in professional services
• Latvia is no longer under the excessive deficit procedure
• Reduce taxes for unskilled or low-income jobs, but create a new property-based tax
• Get more people, especially children, out of poverty by reconsidering a decision to lower the minimum wage
• Hire better people for key posts in the judicial system
• Lithuania is not under the excessive deficit procedure
• Increase tax on property and introduce transport taxes
• Carry out a "comprehensive pension system reform," including a hike in the statutory retirement age
• Continue reform of state-owned companies
• Luxembourg is not under the excessive deficit process
• Address the debt-bias in corporate taxation and extend the application of the standard VAT rate
• Strengthen the recently adopted pension reform, taking additional measures to curb early retirement and increasing the effective retirement age
• Reform the wage setting system, including wage indexation
• Strengthen general and vocational education
• Malta has until 2014 to reduce its deficit
• Improve supervision of the island's massive banking sector
• Keeping an eye on non-performing bank loans for real estate
• Complete plans for electricity grid link-up with Sicily
• The Netherlands should put an end to the present excessive deficit situation by 2014 at the latest
• Reform the housing market
• Increase the employability of older workers
• Reduce tax disincentives on labour
• Acccelerate the reform of employment protection legislation and the unemployment benefit system
• Poland has a deadline of 2014 to reach its deficit targets
• Help women find jobs by paying for more nurseries
• Scrap special social security and pensions schemes for former farmers and miners
• Create tax incentives for innovative and R&D-based companies
• Invest more in roads, dilapidated railways and broadband access
• Romania is no longer under the excessive deficit procedure
• Help people in isolated or remote communities to get access to healthcare
• Alleviate poverty, especially child and Roma poverty
• Improve the professionalism of public institutions
• Slovakia is not under the excessive deficit procedure
• Combat tax fraud, especially VAT fraud, by increasing IT resources in public institutions
• Reduce youth unemployment, in part by improving higher education standards
• Build-up public procurement departments in government ministries
• Slovenia has until 2015 to meet its deficit targets
• Reduce wages and restrictions on temporary contracts
• Conduct a review of at-risk banks and implement a plan to create a Slovenian 'bad bank'
• Quickly privatise the NKBM bank group
• Quickly launch Slovenia Sovereign Holding, a new entity to manage state assets
• Ensure correction of the excessive deficit by 2016
• Conduct a systematic review of the tax system by March 2014
• Establish an independent fiscal authority before the end of 2013
• Increase the cost-effectiveness of the health-care sector
• Reinforce and modernise public employment services
• Sweden is not under the excessive deficit procedure
• Reduce the debt bias in housing taxation
• Widen the use of work-based learning, apprenticeships and other forms of contracts combining employment and education
• Review the effectiveness of the current reduced VAT rate for restaurants and catering services in support of job creation
• Ensure the correction of the excessive deficit in a sustainable manner by 2014/15
• Take further action to increase housing supply
• Reduce barriers to entry in the banking sector
• Reduce the costs of childcare and improve its quality and it availability
• Pursue a differentiated, growth-friendly approach to fiscal tightening