Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-22-Speech-2-030"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050222.4.2-030"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Mr Karas is no longer here, but I would like to have said to him that I share the view that the EU is a Community of law. Above the Stability and Growth Pact is the Treaty, in which there is an article, which has not been changed, calling on Member States to consider their economic policy as a matter of common interest. Accordingly, growth throughout the euro zone is a matter of common interest and I do not feel that the Stability and Growth Pact in its current form is the instrument that we need.
I would say to Mr Radwan that the question before us is not whether we are exceeding the speed limit, but whether we want to drive slowly in a Mercedes, and it strikes me that, at the moment, this is more or less the case with the Stability and Growth Pact.
I should like to make three comments on the Stability and Growth Pact. Firstly, I feel that a good reform is one that provides the Union with a macroeconomic instrument with which to implement the Lisbon Strategy. Against this backdrop, the question of ‘taking expenditure into account’ will be high on the agenda. This is not a matter of opening street market-style negotiations, in which Member States compete to have their demands heard, but of finding where there can be added value for European growth, and only the Commission can tell us this, because the Commission embodies the common European interest.
Secondly, there are those who say that, for accounting reasons, the manner in which one Member State or another pursues structural reforms in the area of retirement could come under the heading of ‘taking expenditure into account’. I feel that this is dangerous, given that, again for accounting reasons, this would lead us into debates that go to the heart of national cohesion.
The third point I should like to make is that, in terms of the way in which we assess the situation in the Member States, it cannot in fact be said that everything takes place on a level playing field. The economic situation, as regards the Stability and Growth Pact, has a different meaning depending on the size of the country; it is inadequate to say that all Member States are alike when it comes to the Pact. Everyone in economic circles now accepts – although it remains frowned upon to say this in political circles – that the impact of using the budgetary instrument varies according to the size of a country’s economy. At the moment, two countries such as France and Germany are in a situation in which they are both responsible for and the victim of a state of affairs that no Member State, in the euro zone or in the EU as a whole, is taking advantage of. It is in nobody’s interest to see the economy of the euro zone weighed down by weak growth in the main economy of the euro zone. This runs counter both to the Treaty and to the Member States’ common interest."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples