Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/1999-11-03-Speech-3-077"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.19991103.6.3-077"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, it is very important indeed that the Council and the Commission think very carefully about the meeting that is being held and the meetings that will be held in the future on the macroeconomic dialogue. It is absolutely pointless to exclude the European Parliament from that discussion. We debate the annual economic report with the Council and the Commission. Last week we had Mr Duisenberg in the European Parliament to oversee the work of the European Central Bank. We have finance ministers coming before the Economic Committee of the European Parliament and we have the social partners also coming before the European Parliament. I hope that at this stage it is an oversight in not involving the European Parliament in this discussion. It seems to me a rather pointless exercise if we are not present.
I want to talk about the outputs from the dialogue. Frankly, that is much more important at this stage than who sits around the table at the first meeting.
It is called a macroeconomic dialogue. I hope it is a dialogue and not a monologue. Our experience from our discussions with the ECOFIN Council and the European Central Bank is that we are very much involved in a monologue. We sit and listen to the orthodoxy from the ECOFIN Council and we listen to the orthodoxy from the European Central Bank. They show absolutely no imagination whatsoever.
The macroeconomic dialogue is critical. At the moment we are operating in a very benign economic environment. We have low inflation, we are returning to growth and things are reasonably stable. What happens in the future when we have a problem in our economy and where there is a serious external shock or a serious internal shock and you have to talk to the social partners and the other economic actors about some perhaps unpalatable measures that need to be taken at a European level?
I say to the president of the ECOFIN Council and to Commissioner Solbes Mira that what we set out in the macroeconomic dialogue in the next few days is not just for what is occurring at the present time, but to set the mood so that in the event of a problem or difficult issues we can actually sit together with the social partners and work out solutions to our problems. Equally, we do not want this monologue – having listened to Mr Duisenberg it will certainly run the risk of being a monologue – to be a discussion only about wage levels. There are many more things involved in the real economy of the European Union than the level of wages of people in employment. We need to look at the reform of labour markets. We need to look at the reform of the capital markets. We need to look at the reform of the product markets. All those things impact upon the social partners.
In conclusion, my group will look with interest at the conclusion of the macroeconomic dialogue. We see this as a first step. But please involve us in the future and understand that in times of difficulty this dialogue could be critical to the way in which European citizens accept the institutions of the European Union when difficult decisions have to be taken."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples