Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-05-15-Speech-4-029"
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"en.20030515.1.4-029"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this new discussion on the broad economic policy guidelines is taking place concurrently with the presentation of the guidelines for employment and at a time when the priorities laid down by the Commission for the internal market strategy are well known.
It is therefore to be hoped that these initiatives and the employment instruments and options that support them are coordinated, because they are intended to ensure economic recovery and growth, full employment and an improvement in the quality of work, social cohesion and inclusion and to increase the competitiveness of the Member States’ economies and of the economy of the Union as a whole.
We should therefore support the rapporteur’s ambition – which stands in contrast with the timidity of the Commission proposal – when he calls for the broad guidelines to make good use of the structural reforms and when he states that the Commission and the Member States must commit themselves to fulfilling a strictly timetabled action plan by 2010.
This joint discussion is taking place, coincidentally, a few days after the Ecofin Council was informed that France and Germany would not be able formally to meet the deficit criteria. It is significant that, having received new information, the Commission has confined itself to noting the fact, without feeling the need, where powerful economies such as those of France and Germany are concerned, to make harsher recommendations. If this is a sign that the time has come for the European institutions to look more closely at the real state of the Union’s economic development than at the uncritical and, sometimes, irrational compliance with criteria of debatable scientific value, all well and good. Discipline and financial rigour are obviously crucial, but it is utterly ridiculous to refuse to use the deficit – created by sound investment and accompanied by cutbacks in lower quality expenditure – as an instrument of anti-cyclical policy. Europe’s economic stagnation is serious, far-reaching and sustained and overcoming this will require a policy of active stabilisation that is not incompatible with long-term fiscal equilibrium.
The rapporteur’s observations on the Stability and Growth Pact are, therefore, pertinent. Public deficits must be evaluated flexibly, taking account of each State’s level of overall debt, public investment needs and requirements arising from the ageing of the population. The creation of a budgetary reserve, which is topped up in periods of growth and used in times of recession, will be a good measure, not least because some of today’s problems are rooted in the excessive tolerance the Commission has shown towards spending by some States at times when the economy is working well.
Lastly, it would have been useful if the report had made a recommendation for the evaluation of excessive deficits to include a toned-down golden rule. It would then be the Commission’s task to identify the investments and public expenditure necessary to comply with the Lisbon strategy, in order to give coherence and harmony to all policies, instruments and objectives arising from the recent initiatives in the field of economic policy."@en1
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