ContextPress conference by the Eurogroup President after the monthly meeting of euro area finance ministers on 18 September 2026.
Why it mattersThe euro area's common line on paying for defence, digital and energy needs while budgets stay tight.
- Euro area growth and productivity need strengthening.
- Large investment needs in defence, digital and energy.
- Budgets are constrained.
- Increase investment in defence, digitalisation and energy.
- Choose investments that also boost growth.
- Coordinate fiscal policies within the Eurogroup.
Read the speech summary
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.