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The Council for Economic and Financial Affairs, also known as ECOFIN Council, is one of the earliest and most influent configurations of the European Union’s Council and it has had an essential role in the construction of the Economic and Monetary Union. The ECOFIN Council is made up of Ministers of Finance of the European Union’s Member States and usually holds a meeting every month. In turn, each Presidency of the European Union holds in its own country an informal ECOFIN ministerial meeting (during the Portuguese Presidency this meeting will take place in Oporto, on 14 and 15 September). Click here to know more about this meeting.
The ECOFIN Council is responsible for the coordination of economic policies, the supervision of public finances of Member States and, in particular, budgetary policies in the sphere of the Stability and Growth Pact. It is also the Council’s responsibility to make decisions in fiscal areas, financial markets and circulation of capital, as well as defining the Union’s relationship with third countries in economic and financial areas. The ECOFIN Council, together with the European Parliament, is also responsible for the approval of the annual budget for the European Union as well as the treatment of other budgetary matters such as available resources and budgetary control.
Eurogroup is an informal body that coordinates economic and budgetary policies of the States that adopted the single currency and it was created after the introduction of the Euro. Its meetings are held the day before the sessions of the ECOFIN’s Councils and it includes the countries of the Euro Zone, represented by their Ministers of Finance.
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