Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-07-03-Speech-4-024"
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"en.20030703.2.4-024"2
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".
Madam President, I wish to thank Mr Gasòliba i Böhm for his presentation and for his interesting report, since I share his point of view hailing the creation of the euro as a great success.
I wish to focus my comments on two fundamental points made in this report. One of them concerns economic policies, while the other relates to problems of an institutional nature, to which he has paid rather more attention. With regard to economic policies, at Thessaloniki the new Broad Economic Policy Guidelines were adopted and we hope the Ecofin Council will formally adopt these at its next meeting. The guidelines maintain the tone set by the Commission, including some of the comments made by this Parliament in the report presented by Mr García-Margallo y Marfil.
In general terms, the proposal ratifies the broad lines on which we are all working: sound macroeconomic policies, which are crucial to increasing demand, growth and employment and to increasing the potential for growth, on the basis of the Lisbon conclusions. This implies a need to press ahead with policies of modernisation and structural change, and our main challenge at the moment is to set up and implement these policies. That is where I believe Parliament must play a crucial role, in this aspect of implementing policies, through its dialogue with the citizens and with the national Parliaments.
As to economic governance, I wish to make two comments; firstly, the Eurogroup has played and continues to play a fundamental role. In our opinion, the recognition of its role in the Constitution should be welcomed, since this maintains its informal character. Nevertheless, the Commission regrets the fact that the idea of creating an Ecofin Council for the Eurozone has not been accepted. We believe that there is a whole set of formal decisions that must be adopted publicly by the countries of the Eurozone and that the existence of the Eurogroup is nevertheless not sufficient to resolve these problems. We welcome the fact that some progress has been made in the decisions that the Eurozone countries are to adopt, including in the framework of the current Ecofin. There are, however, some requests made by the Commission that have not been accepted and we do not believe that this will help the system to function more smoothly. Decisions such as those on the excess deficit procedure, the procedure of multilateral vigilance in the Eurozone or on the entry of Member States to the Eurozone should, in our opinion, be adopted, not by the Council in plenary, but by the Council that deals with the Eurozone. This point will continue to be debated and I hope that we can make progress in this area.
I wish to make a final comment on the issue of external representation. At the Thessaloniki European Council, as Mr Gasòliba i Böhm has just said, emphasis was given to the importance of increasing the Union’s ability to act as a coherent and unified force in the international system. The need to respond more effectively to the challenges of globalisation and economic interdependence was also underlined. The effective and coherent representation of the Eurozone in this way is crucial. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that beyond raising the issue, little progress has been made on external representation.
In recent years, the progress that has been made has basically been better advance coordination of strategic positions at international meetings, which has enabled us in several cases to put forward joint proposals, but not one common proposal. We must make more progress in this direction. I take note of your suggestion, which is not far-removed from another suggestion the Commission made to the Convention. We must be aware, however, of the technical, legal and institutional difficulties that the issue entails and in light of these, I believe it is crucial to demonstrate enormous political sensitivity, in order clearly to define what we want to achieve in future. For this reason, we in the Commission will continue to work with the Convention, trying, in the corrections to the final texts, in the part which is still being debated, to clarify some points. In any event, at the Intergovernmental Conference, the Commission will attempt to put forward a vision that is more ambitious and even innovative, which will enable us to consolidate effective external representation of the Eurozone."@en1
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