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 informally known as the Council of Ministers, is the third of the seven Institutions of the European Union (EU) as ...

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

finance minister A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", ...

s of the 27 European Union member states, 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 Paolo Gentiloni. From 2014 to 2019 the post was named ''Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs''. Un ...

and the President of the European Central Bank.

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 (symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

(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 markets ...

and capital movements 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 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 adop ...

, the

budget of the European Union The Budget of the European Union (EU 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 level. The EU bud ...

which is about €145 bn.

Decision making

The council meets once a month and decides mainly by

qualified majority A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority r ...

, in

consultation Consultation 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 Mexico * Consu ...

codecision The European Union adopts legislation through a variety of legislative procedures. The procedure used for a given legislative proposal depends on the policy area in question. Most legislation needs to be proposed by the European Commission and ...

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 ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label=Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependencies, Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west F ...

, Gibraltar 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