Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-15-Speech-4-236"
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"en.20010215.11.4-236"2
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"Madam President, we believe that the recommendation, adopted on Monday by the Council of Finance Ministers, which puts Ireland in the dock because its budget is, allegedly, expansionary, is disproportionate, to such an extent that we have to wonder why it was made. It is disproportionate because Ireland seemed rather like the good pupil in the European classroom and its level of inflation, which, at the end of the day, really is fairly low in absolute terms, does not threaten to destabilise the whole eurozone.
Under these circumstances, why demand restrictive measures which might have a harmful effect on Ireland? In order to explain this, you have to look at the analysis of the new single monetary system, in which small adjustments achieved by varying exchange rates are replaced by a rigid single currency system, supplemented by strict procedures.
Therefore, adjustments through markets are replaced by centralised, administrative adjustments. Is there any guarantee, however, that this new administrative process will produce better results than the market process? We do not believe that this is the case. The only guarantee is that an economic policy that does not suit all countries will be forced onto the various Member States. This rigid system may have disadvantages which, in the long run, will cancel out the presumed advantages of the single currency.
There is still one question that has not yet been resolved. Is this compulsory unified policy one that has been determined by the larger countries for their own benefit and to the detriment of smaller countries, or could it one day perhaps backfire on the larger countries themselves? I have no pat answer to this question. At the moment, Ireland might well believe that it is part of the first scenario i.e. that it is a smaller country being sacrificed to the interests defined by the heavyweights.
However, the question is more complex because, behind the condemnation of Ireland, there are larger targets in the firing line and France is, perhaps, the prime target. The point is no doubt to set a precedent for, or even to reinforce the idea of, referring to the multilateral surveillance procedure under Article 99 of the Treaty of Amsterdam, so that it can be extended to other Member States in the future. The process of constraint is, therefore, far from over. Europe’s disciplinary role may first affect the smaller Member States, but it may, in future, have an effect on everyone."@en1
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