In its proposal for the next revision of the Growth and Stability Pact (SGP), the European Commission takes two steps. The first is to shift the focus away from yearbyyear evolution of national public finances to a longer-term view that is aligned with the concept of sustainability. Previously, the Pact was implemented on an annual basis, which resulted in often procyclical recommendations that were usually staunchly resisted by national governments for that reason. The second step is to move away from assessing the stance of fiscal policy from the budget balance and to attribute instead a central role to the expenditure benchmark, an in-house measure. Combining these two steps, the Commission proposes to conduct a medium to long-term analysis of debt sustainability from which it derives a multi-year path for acceptable level of public expenditures. Deviations from this path are to be used for surveillance and, if need be, to impose fines.