On Wednesday 22nd of November, the European Commission released its Annual Growth Survey (AGS) for the year 2018, the autumn package kicks off the annual cycle of economic governance coordination.

The document sets out the European Commission economic and social priorities for the year ahead, which sees the Commission guidance for 2018 built around 3 inter-connected strands: investment, structural reforms and fiscal consolidation. Together with the Annual Growth Survey, the European Commission released the so called ‘Autumn package’, containing  a series of budgetary documents launching the 2018 European Semester Cycle. This year’s Autumn Package includes the Alert Mechanism Report, (AMR) which comes as the seventh annual round of the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP), which aims to address imbalances that hinder the smooth functioning of the Member States’ economies, of the euro area, or of the EU as a whole. The Autumn Package also includes Employment Guidelines, which present common priorities and targets for the national employment policies and provide the basis for Country Specific Recommendations in the respective domains. Linked to the Employment Guidelines, there will also be the Joint Employment Report (JER), which provides an annual overview of the main employment and social developments in the EU as a whole, as well as Member States’ reform actions in line with the Employment Guidelines.

The next issue of the Eurodiaconia European Semester Quarterly (to be published in December 2017) will focus on the 2017 AGS package and will provide. It will analyse the package, assess how the AGS 2017 compares to the previous one, and to Eurodiaconia’s policy recommendations.

Find out more about the 2017 Annual Growth Survey on the website (all EU official languages).  Information on the AGS is also available to download.