Today, the Council adopted its country-specific recommendations (CSRs) on the economic, social, employment, structural and budgetary policies of each member state.
This step is part of the 2025 European Semester process, which enables member states to coordinate their economic, employment and fiscal policies.
This year, member state recommendations pay particular focus to the issues of competitiveness and security. Moreover, the first recommendation in each CSR invites each member state to reinforce its overall defence spending and readiness in line with the European Council conclusions of 6 March 2025.
In line with the EU’s recently revised economic governance framework, the fiscal CSRs ask member states to adhere to the maximum net expenditure growth rate determined by the Council. Member states under an Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) are asked to considerably tighten their fiscal policies to ensure that their net expenditure stays within the corrective paths under the EDP.
To maximise the impact of EU funds, member states are also recommended to ensure the full implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Facility by the end of August 2026 deadline, and to implement cohesion policy programmes.
Macroeconomic imbalance procedure
Also under the European Semester, the Council today approved conclusions on the 2025 in-depth reviews under the macroeconomic imbalance procedure (MIP). The MIP aims to identify, prevent and address the emergence of potentially harmful macroeconomic imbalances that could adversely affect economic stability in a particular member state, the euro area, or the EU as a whole.
Background
Introduced in 2011, the European Semester enables the EU member states to coordinate their economic, fiscal and employment policies throughout the year and address the economic challenges facing the EU.
The Commission presents each country with a set of draft country-specific recommendations on their economic, social, employment, structural and budgetary policies, providing policy guidance on how to boost jobs and growth, while maintaining sound public finances.
On this basis, the Council then adopts country-specific recommendations and provides explanations in cases where it does not follow the Commission’s recommendations.
The Council recommendations on the economic, social, employment, structural and budgetary policies of each member state can be found via the links below:
- Austria
- Belgium
- Bulgaria
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czechia
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Greece
- Hungary
- Ireland
- Italy
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Malta
- The Netherlands
- Poland
- Portugal
- Romania
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Spain
- Sweden
- Timeline: the 2025 exercise (background information)
- European semester (background information)
- How the European semester works (background information)
- Economic governance framework (background information)
- Council conclusions on the 2025 in-depth reviews under the macroeconomic imbalance procedure