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The Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP) was introduced in 2011 as part of the 'six-pack' reform of economic governance. It aims to identify, prevent and address macroeconomic imbalances that could adversely affect economic stability in a particular EU country, the euro area, or the EU as a whole.

The empirical analysis provided in this , however, shows that:

• Implementation rate of the country-specific recommendations (CSRs) has been declining over time; although imbalances have clearly receded in the euro area and in the EU over 2013-2018, there is no apparent link with the implementation of the CSRs;
• Despite past reforms, the MIP keeps still largely a country-by-country approach, running the risk of contributing to a deflationary bias in the euro area;
• The MIP scoreboard could be simplified with little loss in terms of early-warning performance; some indicators need to be re-defined consistently with the objective of convergence within the euro area;
• The consistency among the CSRs and the recommendations made by the IMF and the OECD varies greatly across countries; the CSRs are less clear on the financial sector than the IMF is, and they are not always connected to the recommendations made by the ESRB;
• The CSRs sometimes lack internal consistency, especially for countries with high current accounts surplus and with respect to the connection with the recommendations to the euro area.
• National policy-makers and experts are often totally unaware of the entire European Semester process. Communication is often done in technical and administrative form – failing to trigger interest in national debates.

Recommendations

1. Streamline the scoreboard around a few meaningful indicators; check that they are geared towards intra-euro area imbalances rather than performance vis-à-vis the rest of the world.
2. In the recommendation to the euro area, include a section explaining the strategy to reduce imbalances, the contribution of each Member State being specified.
3. Focus MIP-CSRs on policy actions that can have direct impact on imbalances. Involve national macroprudential authorities and national productivity councils; coordinate the timetable of the European semester with that of ESRB’s recommendations;
4. Simplify the language and further involve the Commission into national policy discussions