Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-15-Speech-4-022"
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"en.20030515.1.4-022"2
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"Madam President, in its broad economic policy guidelines (2003-2005), the Commission presents a group of recommendations that, in themselves, appear to us to be completely sound: ensuring the long-term viability of public finances, launching structural reforms, particularly of the labour market, in order to make better use of human resources, reducing unduly high marginal tax rates, encouraging competition, reforming pension systems and so on.
In the eurozone – especially in France and Germany – these recommendations are, unfortunately, scarcely put into practice. Economic revival is having to wait, unemployment is increasing and the date of a return to balanced public finances is forever receding. Nowhere are anything but rigidity and tensions to be seen. I would also emphasise, incidentally, that the situation in the eurozone is much more serious than that in the rest of Europe. Responsibility for this failure is shared. At national level, never enough emphasis can be placed upon the disastrous consequences of the socialist periods in France, which set rational public discourse back years by inculcating the belief that increased spending could be accompanied by less effort, with people on a 35 hour working week and retiring at the age of 60, having contributed to their pensions for only a limited period. We have ended up with the unrealistic mentality that can be observed today and from which it will only be possible to emerge by educating people over a long period of time.
Europe is also partly responsible for this situation, however, although this is not of course mentioned in the Commission’s document. The blame lies partly with the ideology of out-and-out openness, which ought to have stimulated reforms and which, in reality, destabilises societies and increases tension; with the pro-immigration policy, which was to have reinvigorated society but which, in reality, increases the burdens upon it and leads to social disintegration; and with the euro itself, which has done away with internal currency fluctuations but has at the same time introduced new and different forms of rigidity that impair growth.
I am not here talking solely about the rigidities of the Stability and Growth Pact, which will probably need to be deferred or made more flexible, but of forms of rigidity that are very much more serious because they are structural and that stem from the unification of monetary and exchange policies. Recommending the broad economic policy guidelines, as does the report by Mr García-Margallo y Marfil of this Assembly, is no way to solve these problems, because it does not give rise to any soul-searching or to any criticism of the European policies followed to date. The only perspective outlined is that of continuing down the road to unification and of doing so more radically, with more powers of coercion for the Commission.
Only under duress could we recommend this path of unification, for it will prove disappointing, unproductive and, no doubt, even dangerous for Europe. In our opinion, the EU should change strategy and make the protection of European societies its number one priority. If people felt better defended, they would no doubt be a little more ready to adapt."@en1
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