Skip to main content
European Commission logo
enen
Economy and Finance

Annual draft budgetary plans (DBPs) of euro area countries

To ensure the coordination of fiscal policies among Member States sharing the euro as their currency and because economic policy is recognised by the EU Treaty as 'a matter of common concern', governments are required by European economic governance.

Draft budgetary plans

Each year, the EU countries that share the euro as their currency submit draft budgetary plans to the European Commission. The Commission assess the plans to ensure that economic policy among the countries sharing the euro is coordinated and that they all respect the EU’s economic governance rules. The draft budgetary plans are assessed as either compliant, broadly compliant, or at risk of non-compliance.

These draft programmes are made public by the Commission in accordance with EU Regulation No 473/2013.

Commission assessments of draft budgetary plans

The Commission provides two assessments:

  • an opinion on each Member State's plan
  • an overall assessment of the budgetary situation and prospects of the euro area as a whole

The opinion on the draft budgetary plan of each euro area Member State is based on the requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP). For Member States under the Preventive Arm of the Pact, it considers the extent to which Member States have implemented the Country-Specific Recommendations (CSRs) made for them by the Commission under the European Semester; and in particular their compliance with Medium-Term Objectives (MTO) or the adjustment path towards the MTO.

For Member States under the Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP), compliance with the EDP recommendation is a central aspect of the assessment.

If the Commission finds that a Member State’s Draft Budgetary Plan is in particularly serious non-compliance with its obligations under the SGP, it can ask for a revised draft to be submitted.

This exercise complements, for euro area Member States, the assessment of Stability Programmes and Convergence Programmes that takes place each spring, but is focused on providing concrete ex ante guidance for the budget of the year ahead, rather than on medium-term fiscal plans.

Background information