Remarks by Kyriakos Pierrakakis following the Eurogroup meeting of 16 February 2026 20:34 Remarks by Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis on the euro area recommendation,[...]

Good evening. Today's Eurogroup happened just a few days after a decisive meeting of the EU's heads of state or government. I am glad to say that already today's meeting, but also forthcoming Eurogroup meetings, will deal with many of the urgent priority areas identified by our leaders: the savings and investment union, energy prices and competitiveness.

We kicked off today's meeting with a short, but highly relevant item for the Eurogroup's work. We agreed on the draft Council recommendation on the economic policy of the euro area for 2026.

The euro area recommendation holds significant political weight and is even more relevant in today's complex geoeconomic environment. It sets out a broad list of policy recommendations addressed to the euro area member states and calls to act decisively, individually and collectively within the Eurogroup in key areas that are essential for the competitiveness and resilience of our financial system and economy.

In particular, it calls us to safeguard fiscal sustainability while also prioritising our national budgets to accommodate increased defence spending over the medium-term.

Moreover, following our leaders' meeting last week, we commit to swiftly develop a European savings and investment union by deepening and integrating our capital markets to mobilise investments in key areas such as research and innovation and European scale-ups. We will also continue to remove internal market barriers and advance regulatory simplification.

We will integrate these recommendations, on which we established a common understanding today, into our future policy discussions in the Eurogroup.

We then moved on to our discussion on the international role of the euro. Against a background of growing geopolitical fragmentation, we need to reassess our currency's role in the international monetary system and the implications that it can have for our monetary sovereignty and economic resilience.

Commissioner Dombrovskis gave a presentation on the drivers of the international role of the euro and the key pillars of a strategy that could help to strengthen it. There was broad agreement that the international role of the euro is largely a function of progress of many of the other priorities which we have already identified to strengthen the EU economy: for example, the savings and investment union, the competitiveness agenda, and the development of digital finance.

We agreed to integrate the international role of the euro as a key dimension of our work in these areas going forward.

We then welcomed our non-euro-area colleagues to have a wide-ranging discussion on global imbalances. We were also honoured to count the honourable Francois-Philippe Champagne, Finance Minister of Canada, as our guest for this discussion. Canada is a close friend, and this engagement was an occasion to further our already excellent economic relationship. Professor Helene Rey, who is leading the G7's academic group on global imbalances, was also a guest speaker.

As you know, this issue of global macroeconomic imbalances is pretty much everywhere at the moment.

I think everyone agreed with the Commission's point that we need to look at global imbalances in a broad manner: they are not only about specific trade flows of goods between individual countries - they are about the whole financial and economic inter-relationships. I think we also agreed with the ECB's point that we are not at the epicentre of global imbalances, although we are a relevant part of the overall picture and a fragile global economy is a source of risks for us.

One aspect of this discussion is about fostering dialogue on shared challenges for economic prosperity and stability - first-and-foremost in the G7 and also more broadly in the G20. We all have a shared interest in this dialogue, to try to bring down geo-economic risks.

The German Federal Minister of Finance Klingbeil gave a brief presentation on the recent initiative of six EU member states to discuss ways to strengthen the sovereignty, resilience and competitiveness of Europe. The Federal Minister of Finance detailed for us how this is an informal and temporary format intended to facilitate convergence on key priorities already under discussion at the EU level and all within the context of the EU's institutional arrangements..

And finally, some housekeeping. I am very glad to announce that the Eurogroup has appointed Tuomas Saarenheimo for a further term as President of the Euro Working Group. Tuomas has been doing an excellent job for the past six years and we are happy we can count on his expertise for a fourth two-year term, starting 1 April.