text: The New debt reduction rule (Regulation 1177/2011) - also known as the debt reduction benchmark, will be repealed. In the future, a debt-based EDP can instead only be triggered for member states having a debt-to-GDP ratio above 60% along with a budget balance deficit, if the control account of the member state at the same time deviates from the country-specific agreed "Net Expenditure Path" by 0.3 percentage points of GDP annually, or 0.6 percentage points of GDP cumulatively. As 2025 will be the first fiscal year subjected to the reformed "Net Expenditure Path", no member state can have the opening of a debt-based EDP in 2024. The procedure for launching a deficit-based EDP, due to a breach of the 3% deficit limit for the general government nominal budget balance, will however not be changed by the reform, and will therefor be assessed already in 2024.
  The Medium-Term budgetary Objective (MTO) and its related "Significant Deviation Procedure" within the preventive arm of the SGP, are both repealed.
  Fiscal surveillance will no longer focus on how the structural budget balance performs, but instead check if the annual percentage change of the "nationally financed net primary expenditure" of the member state stays within the agreed country-specific multi-year net expenditure path, as endorsed by the Council. This path will serve as a basis for carrying out annual fiscal surveillance over the lifetime of the Member State's medium-term fiscal-structural plan. The "nationally financed net primary expenditure", represents the figure for the overall general government expenditures but excluding: new additional expenditures financed by discretionary revenue measures such as new taxation measures (as per the word "net"), interest expenditures (as per the word "primary"), cyclical unemployment expenditures (making the figure neutral to the business cycle), national expenditures on co-financing of programmes funded by the EU, and expenditures on EU programmes fully matched by revenue from EU funds.