Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-07-04-Speech-1-092"
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"en.20050704.17.1-092"2
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".
Mr President, the European Central Bank fulfilled its objective of maintaining price stability and, in doing so, it managed to steer Europe through the many challenging economic and financial developments of 2004. However, the challenges are on-going and they are worrying. The consumers are bearing the brunt of that particular worry.
Mr Trichet, only a few weeks ago you called upon European consumers to open up their purses and spend more, but there is not enough certainty in the current economic climate to facilitate the surge in spending that you call for. I speak for many of my constituents when I tell you that people purchasing houses are worried about whether the interest rate is going down, about house prices going up, when and where, and what the long-term outlook is. They are uncertain as to what the current hike in oil prices will mean, how long the side-effects will last and what to expect in the long term – their future.
Last week, business confidence in countries such as Germany was on the increase. However, while benefiting from a fall in the euro, they were turning the other cheek within days to be hit with record high oil prices. Companies and consumers are finding it difficult to gauge whether their prospects are good or bad. Such an environment does not cultivate consumer confidence, domestic demand or domestic growth. The predominant risk to growth is the high energy prices. For businesses and consumers dependent on oil, that is detrimental. Our dependency on oil is proving too costly in every respect. We need to look at the long-term energy issue from the perspective of economic viability and sustainability.
Dependency on any single resource leads to market vulnerability. Real energy alternatives are needed to combat this. Let us take the reform of the sugar sector, for example. Countries such as Ireland are to be badly affected by the reform of the sugar sector. However, we need to take initiatives both nationally and at European level to counteract the inevitable negative impacts on these reforms. Irish and European industries need to be assisted in turning a declining sugar industry into a profitable alternative energy source, such as biofuel. There are many fledgling industries, such as the rape-seed oil industry, that need to be financially promoted and supported.
Such measures, Mr Trichet, will assist in creating economic stability, environmental sustainability and consumer confidence. All policies are interdependent and no economy should have a higher rate of dependency on any one energy source and no amount of increase or decrease in the interest rate can change that fact."@en1
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