Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-03-Speech-3-091"

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"en.20031203.7.3-091"2
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"Madam President, today is not a day for delivering eulogies, nor is it a day when we should be saying that the law – European law – has been broken. The procedures are clearly described in the Maastricht Treaty, and they are echoed in the Stability Pact. Each has its part to play – the Commission just as much as the Council of Finance Ministers. The fact that they do not absolutely have to agree in their assessments has something to do with the way in which everyone stresses the need for the Pact to be adhered to and our need for rules, without it being clear how effective a pact of this kind can be when it deals only with sanctions for when things are going badly and makes no provision for the Commission to have a role when things are going well. The Pact is defective not only in that the Commission has no role when things are going well, but also in that it highlights only the difficulties that the Member States face in times of recession. Are not, though, the effects of a three-year period of stagnation, which has shaken and battered Europe’s major national economies in particular, ultimately every bit as bad as a recession? Today, I believe, we also have to emphasise that the Pact has, indeed, demonstrated its effectiveness and so we can set about reforming it without qualms. Any reform must involve the Commission abolishing its rigid procedures for cyclical adjustment and allowing itself to be judged using the methods chosen by the International Monetary Fund. If it did, perhaps our debates would be quite different, as we also have to bear in mind that the figures at issue between the Council of Finance Ministers and the Commission in the cases of France and Germany, even with the error rates in our statistics, relate only to a gap of 0.2%. What we really need now, I believe, is an in-depth debate on the reform of the Stability Pact; above all else, I believe that we have to combine a genuine definition not only of monetary stability but also of financial soundness, with growth and with social stability. That, rather than austerity alone, is the challenge that Europe faces."@en1

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