Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-05-03-Speech-4-027"
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"en.20010503.2.4-027"2
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"The British Conservatives, like other centre-right parties across the European Union, are committed to properly-funded and high-quality public services and, if elected in June, to a massive increase in public spending of around GBP 62 billion on essential services like schools and hospitals. We therefore welcome paragraph 6 but we have reservations about the rest of the report, in particular paragraph 4, because we cannot agree that the 'golden rule' is a good example for Europe to follow.
It is merely one of the many ways in which Gordon Brown succeeds in fiddling the figures. This report and the Stability and Growth Pact in the convergent programmes are clear evidence of the link between tax-and-spend policies and monetary policy. The pact applies to all EU Member States but the legal penalties are only applicable to those states in the euro zone: that is at the heart of our reservations about this report.
One of the reasons why we oppose the United Kingdom joining the euro zone is because we wish to keep the power to set taxes, budgets and spending decisions in the hands of democratically-elected national politicians. Within the euro zone it is not surprising that constraints have been imposed on public spending decisions because if you have, to all intents and purposes, a joint bank account you are affected by the spending decisions of others and you can expect to want some control over those spending decisions.
The recent example of Ireland is a salutary reminder that by joining the euro a country takes on more than a single interest rate: its tax-and-spend decisions will no longer be decided solely in national capitals. It is a prospect which most people in the United Kingdom view with disquiet, the prospect of following a budget by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ecofin, the Commission or the ECB informing that Chancellor that he or she is not permitted to increase spending on schools and hospitals and those services which are of such huge value to the people of the United Kingdom. This has already happened in Ireland and it could happen in the United Kingdom. But I would urge that the real route to economic prosperity in Europe is, as Mr Karas eloquently stated, structural and economic reform which will lead to sustainable prosperity, an increase in employment and a reduction in unemployment."@en1
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"Villiers (PPE-DE )"1
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