Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-07-05-Speech-3-185"
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"en.20000705.5.3-185"2
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"Mr President, I would firstly like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Karas, for his report, and all of you for participating in the debate.
Your recommendations include many of the actions which, in our opinion, must be asked of the Member States and, to this end, we will send a communication to the different countries so that they may take account of them.
I would like to highlight certain very interesting aspects which have been mentioned such as paying special attention to training, schools, women, specific sectors, such as tourism, or the tremendously interesting initiative of the distribution of price tables, or the initial or additional obligations of public administrations.
We will communicate to the banking sector your proposals on the possibility of using some of the ‘savings days’ for information purposes, and we will move forward on all aspects relating to charges on the exchange rate. The Commission is favourable to the idea that there should not be a differential between the charges made for cross-border operations and for national operations.
Two additional comments. The Commission is absolutely prepared to work with Parliament, with the European Central Bank and with the Member States in order to implement a programme which is more efficient, bearing in mind however that, in accordance with the current model, approximately two thirds of the total expenditure of the programme will be met by the Member States, according to their specific programmes.
With regard to the possibility of providing more resources or extending the information process, as proposed in the Karas report, the Commission is in favour of both options. Of course, we will have to debate them in the future, when we discuss the budgets for the coming years.
Mr Karas’s report contains many interesting elements, including 38 proposals, which in many cases coincide with the proposal in the Commission’s communication in February and, in other cases – as he has explained very well in his initial statement –, are proposals which fine-tune, improve and even extend some of the initiatives.
Having made this initial comment, I would like to clarify certain points which I consider to be essential. Firstly, the communication is part of a very complex operation, that is, the introduction of the euro, in the form of coins and notes, on 1 January 2002. Secondly, in the application of this process of introducing the coins and notes, the principle of subsidiarity plays a fundamental role. This means that the Member States, through their governments and central banks, are fundamental to the whole process and also to the operation of providing information.
Our role as Commission consists, in some cases, of persuading, in others, of acting and, in the majority of cases, of communicating to the Member States ideas which they can or cannot apply, and, in some other cases, of proposing specific actions.
The main concern at the moment is to determine the level of preparation of Member States, companies and citizens. With regard to the Member States, I can tell you that next week I will present the Commission with a report on the practical application of the euro. This will contain a summary of the situation of the national plans for the introduction of the euro in each of the Member States.
Companies are the special objective of the information campaign at the moment. According to the latest information available, regarding September, approximately 88% of small and medium-sized businesses assure us that they are prepared for the euro or, at least, are aware of the need to prepare themselves now.
Nevertheless, this figure would be deceptive if I were not to give two additional figures, or make two additional comments. Firstly, of this 88%, only 22% have already implemented the plans necessary for the introduction of the euro. As for the rest, there is a certain contradiction between this position, which in theory is so favourable to the companies, and the lack of use of the euro in normal operations at the moment. To put it another way, we have the impression that companies view the operation with relative optimism, in the belief that it will be easier than it may turn out to be. This is the reason why we believe that we must pay special attention to companies during this period, as well as to citizens.
The Commission intends to implement certain specific actions, apart from the July communication, regular reports to ECOFIN, a proposal on counterfeiting, which will be presented before the end of the year, and also a series of measures necessary for coordination.
I would like to make some comments relating to the various points mentioned in the debate. On the whole, the proposals in the communication coincide with the proposals which have been made here. Nevertheless, there are certain points which deserve additional comment. Firstly, what action must we take in the ‘pre-in’ countries or in third countries? The countries which are not currently members of the Monetary Union have the right, like other Member States, to information campaigns. This will clearly happen, as long as those countries want it to happen. Two of them, for the moment, Denmark and the United Kingdom, have not shown any interest in implementing these information campaigns."@en1
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