text: 1999–2005 Across the first seven years, since the entry into force of the Stability and Growth Pact, all EU Member States were required to strive towards a common MTO being "to achieve a budgetary position of close to balance or in surplus over a complete business cycle – while providing a safety margin towards continuously respecting the government's 3% deficit limit". The first part of this MTO, was interpreted by the Commission Staff Service to mean continuously achievement each year throughout the business cycle of a "cyclically-adjusted budget balance net of one-off and temporary measures" (also referred to as the "structural balance") at minimum 0.0%. In 2000, the second part was interpreted and operationalized into a calculation formula for the MTO also to respect the so-called "Minimal Benchmark" (later referred to as "MTO Minimum Benchmark"). When assessing the annual Convergence/Stability programmes of the Member States, the Commission Staff Service checked whether the structural balance of the state complied with both the common "close to balance or surplus" criteria and the country-specific "Minimal Benchmark" criteria. The last round under this assessment scheme took place in Spring 2005, while all subsequent assessments were conducted according to a new reformed scheme – introducing the concept of a single country-specific MTO as the overall steering anchor for the fiscal policy.
  Calculation of a country-specific Minimum MTO (2005–present)