Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-04-Speech-3-028"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20010404.2.3-028"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, in economic and social terms, the Stockholm Council set itself a major strategic objective: to define the main conditions necessary in order to turn Europe into a competitive area with full employment. Yet the Council’s conclusions give a rather odd double impression of unrestrained intervention on the one hand and abstention on the other.
As far as multidirectional interventions are concerned, there is hardly any subject in the economic and social field which has not been mentioned, even when there was nothing new to say about it. This makes it hard to identify the main thrusts, and in particular it is no longer possible to distinguish between what is Europe’s responsibility and what is the Member States’ responsibility.
For example, the Stockholm Council was very concerned about the viability of social protection systems, a subject which the previous Council, in Nice, had expressly designated as being the responsibility of the Member States. One only has to mention, somewhere in a sentence, the need to respect subsidiarity, and the machine can rumble on its way as if nothing had happened.
This omnipresent method raises not only the question of subsidiarity, but also the question of how effective the work of the Council actually is. We very much doubt whether the Heads of State or Government were really able to examine all these subjects, and we very much doubt whether it is possible to make things happen by using such methods.
The large number of subjects dealt with merely serves to show up, even more sharply, the almost total absence of any role for the euro, despite the fact that the euro had been presented to us as the number one priority in order to achieve a competitive Europe, which was the principal objective of the Stockholm Summit. The Council’s conclusions contain, buried somewhere beneath a mass of words, an indication that, in less than 300 days, the euro should be circulating in the form of notes and coins, but there is no mention of the organisational reforms needed to extricate it from its present weak position in the exchange markets. There is also no mention of the Commission’s recent communication on this subject, which seems to have been put aside.
However, if the euro does not recover, Mr President, its credibility in the eyes of the public will be called into question."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples