Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-13-Speech-3-213"
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"en.20020313.9.3-213"2
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"Mr President, may I express my thanks to Bruno Trentin for the quality of his work and for being a good listener. In his diagnosis he clearly emphasises that Europe is not cyclically dependent on the United States and that the research and technological-innovation gap between the two sides of the Atlantic is liable to widen, with the Union clearly lagging particularly far behind in terms of public and private investment. But how should we respond? Our Committee wished to adhere to the principle of coordinating national policies, which it sees as one of the mandatory precepts of the Stability Pact. But who can fail to observe the extremely poor results of this coordination? Who can fail to see that the Pact, while providing Member States with a useful discipline as far as public deficits are concerned, does not begin to define the policies that are required if the development targets set in Lisbon are to be met? As for the intensification of fiscal competition, it compels governments to cut public spending, even on essentials. And who can also fail to observe that the Member States will not let the Union acquire budgetary and fiscal instruments that would enable it to support a policy of investment and development?
This is why, unlike Mr Radwan and contrary to the letter of the report, I believe we cannot continue to operate within the bounds set by the present treaties. It will be necessary to go beyond the coordination stage and try to extend the powers of the Union. The broad economic policy guidelines and the Stability Pact must be reviewed if we want to adopt a truly cooperative approach, and we must press for the Union to obtain the budgetary and fiscal instruments without which it cannot pursue real economic policies.
Accordingly, our Parliament should seize the present opportunity to take a historic initiative by formulating proposals for submission to the Convention on the Future of Europe. It would be a cruel disappointment and, I believe, a political error of the first magnitude if the Convention did not try to strengthen the European Union and its powers in the sphere of economic policy at this precise time when some large question marks hang over the development and cohesion of our Community."@en1
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