The Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) is one of the oldest configurations of the

Council of the European Union The Council of the European Union, often referred to in the treaties and other official documents simply as the Council, and less formally known as the Council of Ministers, is the third of the seven institutions of the European Union (EU) a ...

Economic and Financial Affairs
/ref> and is composed of the economics and

finance minister A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position . A ministry of finance's portfoli ...

s of the 27

European Union member state The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are party to the EU's founding treaties, and thereby subject to the privileges and obligations of membership. They have agreed by the treaties to share their o ...

s, as well as Budget Ministers when budgetary issues are discussed. ECOFIN often works with the

European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs The European Commissioner for Economy is a member of the European Commission. The current Economy Commissioner is Valdis Dombrovskis. From 2014 to 2019 the post was named ''Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs' ...

and the

President of the European Central Bank The president of the European Central Bank is the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), the main institution responsible for the management of the euro and monetary policy in the Eurozone of the European Union (EU) The current president of ...

Tasks

The Council covers a number of EU policy areas, such as economic policy coordination, economic surveillance, monitoring of Member States' budgetary policy and public finances, the

euro The euro (currency symbol, symbol: euro sign, €; ISO 4217, currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the Member state of the European Union, member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the ...

(legal, practical and international aspects),

financial markets A financial market is a market in which people trade financial securities and derivatives at low transaction costs. Some of the securities include stocks and bonds, raw materials and precious metals, which are known in the financial marke ...

and

capital movement In international economics, the balance of payments (also known as balance of international payments and abbreviated BOP or BoP) of a country is the difference between all money flowing into the country in a particular period of time (e.g., ...

s and economic relations with third countries. It also prepares and adopts every year, together with the

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

, the

budget of the European Union The budget of the European Union ( The Union’s annual budget) is used to finance EU funding programmes (such as the European Regional Development Fund, the Cohesion Fund, Horizon Europe, or Erasmus+) and other expenditure at the European ...

which is about €145 bn. Art. 284 of the TFEU enables the ECOFIN president can attend the meetings of the ECB's Governing Council as an observer.

Decision making

The council meets once a month and decides mainly by

qualified majority A supermajority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fund ...

, in

consultation Consultation or consultative may refer to: * Public consultation, a process by which the public's input on matters affecting them is sought * Consultation (Texas), the 1835 Texas meeting of colonists on a proposed rebellion against the Republic of ...

or codecision with the European Parliament, with the exception of fiscal matters which are decided by unanimity. When the Ecofin Council examines dossiers related to the euro and EMU, the representatives of the Member States whose currency is not the euro do not take part in the vote of the council. ECOFIN delegates some of its tasks to the Code of Conduct Group.ec.europa.eu: Taxation and Customs Union - Harmful tax competition - Code of Conduct
/ref> For example, that Group has resolved issues of tax policy on

Jersey Jersey ( ; ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. Although as a British Crown Dependency it is not a sovereign state, it has its own distinguishing civil and gov ...

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

and other "dependent or associated territories", and investigated the UK Patent Box tax treatment.Reddie & Grose: "18 December 2013: UK Patent Box – Taxing times?"

References

External links

*
About the Economic and Financial Affairs CouncilPress releases of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council
{{Council of the European Union Council of the European Union Finance in the European Union

Tasks

Decision making

See also

References

External links