Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-15-Speech-3-125"
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"en.20040915.6.3-125"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Minister, ladies and gentlemen, of the Prodi Commission’s final initiatives, the proposed reform of the Stability and Growth Pact is one of the most significant acts at a time of uncertainty in the European Union’s economy.
The decisions made in recent years have ensured stability and kept inflation under control, but growth has remained low and there are no binding rules for implementing the Lisbon objectives. Growth in Europe must be raised in qualitative terms back to rates of at least 3%. Reform of the Pact may be one of the means by which we can get out of the slowdown. The Commission’s proposal, presented here by Mr Almunia, is a good starting point but needs to be improved. The Member States must turn this debate into a really thorough discussion, like the one that accompanied Maastricht.
The discussion should be structured around three key points. First, the future Pact should be ‘Lisbonised’, giving greater weight to all those criteria connected with structural reforms, innovation and investment in research and development. The proposals concerning the golden rule should be restored, but with the constraint that investments beyond the 3% should be set up and managed at Community level and should not deteriorate into a mere market for the interests of the various countries, as Mr Klinz has just said. Secondly, with regard to debt, the trend needs to be the decisive criterion, not the amount. Thirdly, clarification is needed regarding the credibility that the Commission wants the Pact to have, since the Pact was thrown into a serious crisis by the Ecofin decision in November and by the final text of the Constitution on the balance of power between Ecofin and the Commission, which favours the national governments more than the Convention’s text did.
In conclusion, I must point out that, if no solution is found to the political problem of the credibility of the Pact and of the Member States’ commitment to abide by it, then the whole point at issue is likely to be merely academic."@en1
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