Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-22-Speech-2-052"
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".
Mr President, I would like to thank all the honourable Members who have spoken for their contributions to the debate, which I have found very interesting.
With regard to the excessive deficit procedure, and this is the most difficult point in our discussion, we are discussing how that procedure should be launched. I shall reiterate our position: no spending will be excluded from the calculation of the level of deficit. But if you read Article 104 of the Treaty once again, you will see that, once the European Commission informs the Council that a certain country is, in its judgement, in a situation of excessive deficit, the Council has full powers, following an overall assessment — Article 104(6) of the Treaty — to decide ‘‘whether an excessive deficit exists’.
We are trying to ensure that the criteria the Commission uses when informing the Council that a country is in a situation of excessive deficit coincide with the criteria the Council then uses, in order to prevent any further clashes such as those which have occurred in the past. So that while respecting the functions and competences of the Commission — and the Commission is not going to give up any of the competences attributed to it by the Treaty — and also those of the Council — which is not going to give up any of the competences attributed to it by the Treaty either — within the context of that relationship, that cooperation, there are no clashes which paralyse the procedure, leading to conflicts such as those which arose just over a year ago.
Governance is very important. It is very important that there be national rules which complement the ownership efforts of the Member States in relation to the common budgetary discipline rules. It is very important that we have clear, reliable and accurate statistics, as we have seen recently. It is very important that there be cooperation between the two institutions, the Council and the Commission, and it is extremely important that there be support and debate in Parliament, such as the one taking place today, and there will undoubtedly be further such debates in the future.
It is very important that we reach an agreement. You have mentioned, and I share this concern, the credibility of the Economic and Monetary Union and, in particular, the credibility of our single currency on the markets. The markets will not understand if there is no agreement in the March European Council, and all of us, each according to our respective responsibilities, must make the greatest possible effort to ensure that that agreement is concluded and published on 23 March in the European Council's conclusions. For its part, the Commission will make every possible effort in that direction.
I shall end by acknowledging the excellent cooperation we are enjoying with the Presidency of the Council, which is firmly committed to achieving that success.
I would like to conclude by reiterating the Commission’s analysis. At several points during the debate, thoughts have been attributed to the Commission that neither I nor the Commission agree with.
The Commission and I believe that the main challenge in terms of increasing growth in the European Union and in the eurozone is to increase the growth potential. That requires structural reforms such as those the Commission has proposed in its Communication on the review and revitalisation of the Lisbon Strategy.
If we do not increase the growth potential, the medium- and long-term sustainability of our economy and our social model will not be possible and short-term macroeconomic stability and budgetary stability will be seriously jeopardised by the lack of growth. So that is our analysis and, on that basis, macroeconomic policy, as the Kok report states — and I completely agree on this point — must support a strategy of structural reforms which increases growth potential in order to sustain that growth and in order to prevent the lack of liquidity, funding and demand from jeopardising our ability to take advantage of all the growth possibilities that we have achieved as a result of the reforms.
The Commission believes success in the revitalisation of the Lisbon strategy to be a priority and to this end we have proposed ten priorities and we have considered how to improve the capacity of each of the Member States to implement the Lisbon strategy in accordance with their particular situations, so that we can achieve the objectives we all agree on in all of those states and throughout the European Union. These objectives have not been reduced in the Commission's communication, and have been confirmed just as they were defined five years ago.
With regard to the Stability Pact, Mr President, I would like to make a few clarifications. I believe we should understand what is happening over the current few weeks, during which the Council, with the support of the Commission by means of the excellent cooperation with the Luxembourg Presidency, is trying to reach an agreement in order to improve the way we apply our budgetary discipline mechanisms in practice and in order to ensure that the objectives pursued by the Treaty, where it defines budgetary stability as one of the conditions of the Economic and Monetary Union, become a more positive and obvious reality than they are at the moment.
What are we doing? Firstly, we are reiterating our firm and clear commitment to the reference values laid down in the Treaty. 3% is laid down in the Treaty and the Commission will ensure that that reference value is respected. I would like to make it clear once again, and I will continue to do so whenever necessary, that neither the Commission's proposal nor the currently unanimous position of all the Ecofin ministers, proposes excluding any category of spending from the calculation of the deficit. What we are considering, in accordance with Article 104 of the Treaty, is what important factors should be taken into account when analysing why there has been excessive deficit and what should be done in order to recover the situation of balance, the sustainability of the public finances, in order to bring the level of deficit below the reference value.
It is possible to distinguish, as we are doing precisely in this debate, between not excluding any category of spending and at the same time taking into account economic factors, from the composition of public spending, the situation of the cycle, the structural reforms underway, in order to see how the preventive part of the pact is applied, how public finances stand in terms of medium- and long-term balance or, in terms of the excessive deficit procedure, what recommendations are truly effective in terms of a country in a situation of excessive deficit recovering its budgetary balance. To this end, it is extremely important, and this is the second key element in our discussion, to prevent the application of the pact leading in practice to pro-cyclic policies, both in the preventive part and in the corrective part of the excessive deficit procedure.
One of the most obvious reasons why certain countries have broken the 3% of deficit rule is that, when they were at positive points in their economic cycle, they did not apply pro-cyclic policies, they did not sufficiently consolidate their public finances, and there are instruments in the Treaty such as early warnings, which furthermore are strengthened in the Constitution and directly attributed to the Commission, which must be used more effectively. Furthermore, each Member State must establish national rules which supplement the peer pressure on those making decisions at national level on the composition of revenue and budgetary spending and thus the budgetary deficit of each of the Member States, which, I would remind you, is still a national competence, although, as Mrs Berès said, the combined result of those national budgetary policy decisions is of common interest, since we are in an Economic and Monetary Union."@en1
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