On 22 December 1993, on the eve of transition to the second stage of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the Council adopts a recommendation on the broad guidelines of the economic policies (BGEP) of the Member States and of the Community.

As laid down in its first article, ‘this Regulation sets out the rules covering the content, the submission, the examination and the monitoring of stability programmes and convergence programmes as part of multilateral surveillance by the Council so as to prevent, at an early stage, the occurrence of excessive general government deficits and to promote the surveillance and coordination of economic policies.’

With regard to the transition to a single currency, the European Council adopts a Resolution on economic policy coordination in stage 3 of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in which it emphasises the role of the Ecofin Council as the central decision-making body for economic coordination.

The introduction to the Council recommendation on the broad economic policy guidelines (BEPGs) for 2000 proves to be particularly useful in depicting the Council’s role as a coordinator, not only because it gives the reasons for the formal structure of the Act, as adopted each year by the Council, but also because it includes a section explaining exactly what are the BEPGs.