Kyriakos Pierrakakis: speeches

1. The backdrop

Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis summarised the ministers' meeting of 8 October 2026 against a tense background: geopolitical strains lifting energy costs and inflation, and higher government borrowing costs as investors scrutinise the budgets of large European economies. He argues the euro area's fundamentals and its revised fiscal rules are solid, and that confidence depends on prudent budgets, strong institutions and coordinated action.

2. Energy

Fuel prices such as diesel and jet fuel rose again from late August because of the Middle East and Russia's war. Ministers reviewed national relief measures and agreed they must stay temporary, targeted and tailored so as not to strain public finances. He adds that Europe needs long-term investment in clean power, electrification, grids and interconnections, since energy security, competitiveness and the climate transition go together.

3. Better use of public money

Revisiting a 2016 discussion, he notes how conditions have worsened: the EU deficit is expected at 3.5% of GDP in 2026 against 1.7% then, ten-year yields average 4% instead of 1.1%, and defence spending is rising from 1.3% to 2.4% of GDP. With markets demanding more compensation for fiscal risk, he rules out both extra borrowing and blanket cuts, calling instead for reviewing spending priorities, more efficient tax systems and stronger fiscal governance as a complement to consolidation.

4. Capital markets, global issues and the ECB

Ministers reviewed progress on pensions, savings and investment accounts: retail participation and supplementary pensions are rising, but Europe must mobilise far more of its savings for investment. Ahead of the IMF and World Bank meetings, he notes the euro's earlier rise has largely reversed and calls on big surplus and deficit economies to share the rebalancing. Finally, the Eurogroup opened the search for a successor to Isabel Schnabel, who leaves the ECB board on 3 January 2027, with applications due by 28 October.

1. Why growth matters

At a Brussels forum of bankers and employers on 7 October 2026, Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis argued that Europe, despite its wealth, skills, single market and large savings, is growing too slowly. Faster growth means better jobs, wages and public services, and lets firms invest in machines, digital tools and AI. It has also become a matter of geopolitical strength, as Europe must fund defence, energy security, critical technologies and infrastructure.

2. The financing gap

With an ageing workforce, growth must come from productivity and therefore investment, estimated by Mario Draghi at around EUR 800 billion more each year. Public budgets cannot cover it. The paradox, he says, is that Europe has ample savings but a financial system still split along national lines, so many firms cannot raise capital to grow. The Savings and Investments Union aims to link those savings to productive firms across the single market.

3. Banks and the unfinished Banking Union

Because banks still provide about 70% of business finance and are vital for small firms, he says the savings union cannot succeed without completing the Banking Union. European banks are now sound and helped absorb recent crises, but the market remains national: barely 16% of loans to euro-area companies are made across borders, and rules still trap capital and liquidity inside countries. He describes this fragmentation as a hidden levy on scale, investment and innovation, made more costly by technology: large US banks spend more than twice as much on IT relative to assets.

4. Three priorities and the political challenge

He calls for integration (fewer barriers to cross-border mergers and to moving capital within groups), trust (crisis management, funding for banks being wound down and a step forward on a common deposit guarantee) and competitiveness (simpler, more proportionate and consistent supervision rather than looser rules), while keeping room for strong regional banks serving small firms. The economics are well understood, he says; the obstacle is political, as each country guards its own safeguards. He sees the Eurogroup's role as building trust and compromise, and stresses urgency because investment and AI decisions are being made now.

1. Resilient growth, rising pressure

After the Eurogroup meeting in Dublin, President Kyriakos Pierrakakis said the euro area did better than expected in the second quarter and should keep expanding through the end of 2026. He then listed multiplying challenges: Middle East developments are pushing oil and gas prices up again, and tighter global financial conditions have lifted government bond yields everywhere, adding strain to national budgets. Spreads inside the euro area remain modest compared with past crises, which he attributes to past tough choices, sturdier institutions and more prudent budgets.

2. Energy independence and fiscal discipline

His answer is to reduce dependence on events abroad by speeding up energy independence, and to stay on the agreed fiscal path because credibility has become an economic asset. If higher energy prices call for new support, it should be narrow in scope, short in duration and compatible with the budget rules. Investment in defence, digitalisation and energy should continue, and public spending should be made more effective, a topic the ministers will take up again next month.

3. Productivity and Europe's savings

Ministers also heard OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann on productivity, two years after the Draghi report. Pierrakakis said progress is real but the world is moving faster. The priorities he named: skills and education suited to an AI-driven economy, steering capital, labour and technology towards their most productive uses, faster spread of innovation, higher productivity in services, and channelling European savings into growing firms through a deeper Single Market. Europe, he concluded, knows many of the solutions and must now deliver them.

1. A hard backdrop

Meeting Germany's finance minister Lars Klingbeil ahead of the Dublin Eurogroup, President Kyriakos Pierrakakis described an exceptionally difficult setting: the war in Ukraine, instability in the Middle East, and high energy costs and price pressure weighing on firms and households. Euro-area growth has nevertheless held up better than feared.

2. Beyond budget discipline

He says sound public finances matter but will not alone bring growth or economic sovereignty. Structural obstacles must be tackled: a deeper Single Market, a faster savings and investments union, and an energy market less split by national borders. Fiscal room will shrink as defence, ageing and climate costs rise, so the Eurogroup will review revenue, spending and governance in the coming months, push the market integration and supervision package, and open a strategic debate on AI and technological sovereignty, alongside energy security, critical minerals and climate adaptation.

3. A lesson from Greece

Drawing on his experience as Greece's finance minister, he argued that painful reforms pay off politically, economically and socially, pointing to his country's fast-falling debt, positive growth and primary surpluses. The goal, he said, is a European economy less exposed to outside shocks.

1. A broader Eurogroup

After the 9 July meeting, Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis said budgets, debt and fiscal rules remain core, but the economy is changing so fast that competitiveness, technology, AI, energy security and geopolitics form one reality, so the Eurogroup must evolve. The new twelve-month work programme has four priorities: fiscal coordination, the savings and investments union, Europe's competitiveness together with its economic security, and a stronger global, digital and strategic role for the euro, and it will widen to cover military funding, energy supply security and tech autonomy.

2. AI and digital finance

Ministers heard from Mistral's chief executive Arthur Mensch. AI can lift productivity and strengthen finance through better risk management and cyber defence, but the same capabilities create new systemic risks, which the ESRB and ECB supervisors highlighted for frontier models; Europe must mobilise capital so its AI champions can scale at home. A common statement on digital finance calls for speed, legal clarity and public-private cooperation, and he welcomed the European Parliament's vote on the digital euro.

3. Fiscal stance and the euro

On the fiscal stance, uncertainty is high given the Middle East, and defence, energy and public investment needs must be met without losing the credibility of the agreed fiscal framework. The ECB showed that the euro's international role is strengthening; stability remains the foundation, but competitiveness decides where Europe stands.

1. The budget and the euro

At the annual EU budget conference, Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis answered the question of how the European budget supports the euro by shifting from how to spend money to how to generate it. A currency is only as strong as the economy standing behind it, and investors put money into issuers' output potential, robustness and trustworthiness. In a world where technology is a strategic asset, energy a security issue and dependencies a geopolitical weakness, resilience has become a source of competitiveness, which is the base of monetary strength. So the multiannual financial framework should be about strengthening long-term capacity to create prosperity, and the debate should move from a zero-sum game over scarce funds to a positive-sum one.

2. The spectrum example

Europe's best achievements, he argued, came from creating new economic value through scale and ending fragmentation, as with the coal and steel community, the single market and now the savings and investments union. As a concrete case he cited radio spectrum, the asset underpinning AI, manufacturing, mobility, satellites and defence, which is still sold through 27 separate auction systems with 27 regulators, even though Europe has telecom champions that compete globally. Greece's 2020 auction aimed at quick roll-out and put a quarter of proceeds into a fund for 5G applications. If 6G and 5G renewal auctions were synchronised, the proceeds could become an own resource for the EU budget and endow an EIB fund for next-generation applications. He concluded that faith in the euro depends on faith in the European economy.

1. A new Hungarian direction

After meeting Hungary's new Prime Minister Magyar and Finance Minister Kármán in Budapest, Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis welcomed a government only weeks old for words and actions committing Hungary to Europe, recalling that Hungary's accession treaty was signed in Athens in 2003. He said Hungary, he said, is shifting from the sidelines to the centre of European decisions, and talks covered competitiveness, energy security, deeper integration of financial markets and investment.

2. The road to the euro

He welcomed Hungary's ambition to join the euro area eventually and its commitment to meeting the conditions: a demanding but transformative journey that needs economic criteria met and institutional credibility, and offers stability and strategic security, as the recent entries of Bulgaria and Croatia show. In answer to a question, he listed the convergence criteria (interest rates, exchange rate, inflation and public finances, plus two years in the exchange-rate mechanism), said the Eurogroup's help is know-how and a symbolic signal of support, declined to comment on timing, and stressed that the decision is sovereign.

3. Recovery funds and reform

Unfreezing Recovery and Resilience Facility money is a political priority for Hungary: the national plan went in a week ago and is due for Council approval on 10 July. He praised steps to strengthen anti-corruption rules, public procurement transparency and the role of social partners, said reforms make a country attractive to investors, and supported delivery of the agreed milestones so that full disbursement can follow once all conditions are met.

1. Present challenges

After the 11 June Eurogroup meeting, President Kyriakos Pierrakakis said ministers looked at both urgent problems and the choices that decide how competitive Europe will be. The Middle East crisis is already felt, energy markets are still strained and the dangers for growth and prices need close watching. The Commission and the ECB presented assessments, and ministers took stock of national fiscal plans: uncertainty has a cost, so fiscal coordination, stability, credibility and consistency matter even more. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva joined the annual exchange on euro area policies and broadly shares the European assessment.

2. Energy, technology and financing

Energy supply, cost competitiveness, the climate transition and industrial strategy form a single problem, so Europe needs a strategy that cuts both costs and dependencies, through better interconnections, network investment and domestic sources. On technology, Europe has universities, research and talent; its only deficit is scale, because it often fails to turn innovations into global champions. Technological sovereignty means having the capabilities, skills and industrial base to make its own decisions, not isolation. All of this is financed by channelling European savings into productive investment through the savings and investments union. He welcomed new colleagues from Latvia and Slovenia and concluded that Europe must manage today's crisis and prepare for tomorrow at once.

1. Economy under strain

After the euro-area finance ministers met in Cyprus, Kyriakos Pierrakakis describes a demanding moment. Instability in the Middle East pressures energy markets and supply chains, and the Hormuz situation disrupts oil, gas, fertiliser and helium. The Commission now projects growth slightly under one percent this year and about 1.2% in 2027, weaker than before yet far from recession, with renewed but milder inflation pressure than in 2022.

2. Policy balance

Europe must protect fiscal stability while easing strain on households and firms, using measures that are temporary, targeted and tailored. He credits past energy adaptation with cutting the crisis impact by about 12% according to the IMF, and stresses coordination with partners after G7 talks led by France.

3. Housing and the digital euro

Ministers held a substantive talk on housing affordability, which affects productivity, mobility and inequality, agreeing no single fix suits all countries. They also met a European Parliament committee chair on digital euro legislation, which he wants finished by year end, calling the project vital for sovereignty and the euro's international role, deliverable by 2029.