The Council confirmed its agreement on economic governance. The Council will adopt the package without further discussion, once the texts have been finalised in all official languages following an agreement voted at the European Parliament reached after intensive negotiations.

The so-called "six-pack" of measures on economic governance has been agreed by the Council. This package of measures is aimed at strengthening economic governance in the EU – and more specifically in the euro area – as part of the EU's response to the current turmoil on sovereign debt markets. The measures set out to ensure the degree of coordination necessary to avoid the accumulation of excessive imbalances and to ensure sustainable public finances. This will help enable the EU's monetary union to function properly in the long term. The agreement comes following the green light to the proposals given by the European Parliament.

More specifically, the measures set out to enhance budgetary discipline under the EU's Stability and Growth Pact, in order to ensure a satisfactory decline of public debt in the Member States, as well as a decrease of high deficits to be followed by achieving ambitious, country-specific medium-term budgetary objectives (four proposals). This involves enhancing the surveillance of budgetary policies,  introducing provisions on national fiscal frameworks, and applying enforcement for non-compliant euro area member states more consistently and at an earlier stage.

In addition, there are two proposals within the package aimed at broadening the surveillance of the member states' economic policies, so as to cater adequately for macroeconomic imbalances. An alert mechanism is introduced for the early detection of imbalances, to be assessed using a "scoreboard" of economic indicators. An "excessive imbalance procedure" is also introduced, with enforcement for non-compliant member states.