Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-15-Speech-3-118"
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"en.20040915.6.3-118"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, as Mr Schulz has just said, my group fully supports the proposal that Commissioner Almunia has put forward. It breaks the taboo on tampering with the Pact as initially defined and suggests that you be pragmatic in learning the lessons of the first five years of the EMU’s operation. This it does in order to usher in a new period in the history of the single currency, which makes it possible, in reality, to combine stability with the prioritisation of growth and employment.
The present framework has not only shown itself to be deficient as an instrument of growth in comparison with the performances of the world’s other major currency areas, including those of the EU Member States that remained outside the eurozone; it has also shown itself to be vulnerable in terms of its own credibility, bearing in mind not only the number and the size of the Member States that have broken its rules, but also the uncertainty prompted by the decision of November 2003, which the Court of Justice’s ruling in July really did nothing to allay.
So it is that we endorse your proposals, particularly those about taking better account of the link between debt, deficit, economic cycles and countries’ specific situations in order to get away from the ‘one size fits all’ approach; we also endorse the emphasis you place on prevention, on early warnings, on peer pressure, and, finally, on anticipating events rather than simply relying on the sanctions machinery.
My group, however, would insist on two other items, which my colleagues will address, as it seems to us that additional measures are needed. Reform of the Pact must have as its primary objectives growth and employment, an increase in which will contribute to stability – or, to be more precise, will give the eurozone a real basis for stability – and will be achieved by making a link, which is de facto absent at the moment, between reform of the Pact, the Lisbon strategy, coordination and the Member States’ economic policy guidelines. Specifically, then, we think that the issue that has to be addressed is that of how to encourage investment in growth and how to take into account, in a nuanced way, those investments that contribute to the Lisbon strategy and to achieving its objectives, namely research, innovation, infrastructures and the major trans-European networks, without forgetting lifelong learning.
Secondly, we also have concerns about the long-term nature of debt and, at the same time, we are concerned to ensure that taking account of ageing does not become a pretext for propelling Member States towards the privatisation of their social security systems, pension schemes in particular. We would prefer this to be clarified and this argument not to be used tomorrow in an attempt the bottom line of which is to reduce social protection and social security that the people of Europe enjoy."@en1
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