Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-19-Speech-2-341"
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"en.20070619.44.2-341"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, with regard to the provisions of the euro zone’s single monetary policy, Sweden is currently one of the Member States that are subject to an exception. At the moment there are 13 Member States subject to that exception and, furthermore, we have the case of the United Kingdom, which has the famous ‘opt-out’ clause and which is not therefore included amongst the States with exceptions.
With the exception of Denmark, all of the other Member States with exceptions, that is to say, 12 Member States must adopt the euro as their currency, to which end they must seek to meet the convergence criteria laid down in the Treaty. Nevertheless, the Treaty does not set explicit time limits for the Member States to comply with that obligation.
Our last convergence report, which covers the States with exceptions, was published in December 2006, and in it the Commission concluded that Sweden met the price stability criterion, the criterion relating to the public budget situation and the criterion on the convergence of long-term interest rates.
Nevertheless, according to that same convergence report, Sweden did not meet the exchange rate criterion, which requires the Member State in question to have remained within the normal margins of fluctuation laid down in the exchange rate mechanism (ERM II) without any serious tensions for at least two years prior to the assessment.
Furthermore, in last December’s convergence report, the Commission pointed out that the Swedish legislation was not fully compatible with Articles 108 and 109 of the Treaty with regard to the regulation of the Central Bank and its integration into the European system of central banks.
In view of this assessment, the Commission concluded that there was no need to modify Sweden's status as a Member State with an exception in this area. In accordance with the Treaty, the Commission and the European Central Bank will publish the next convergence report in 2008, in principle in May 2008.
With regard to the final part of your question, which relates, by way of comparison, to the security of energy supply, the provisions of the Treaties in force have already led the European Parliament and the Council to adopt directives relating, on the one hand, to the security of natural gas supply, and, on the other, to safeguarding the security of electricity supply in investment in infrastructures. These directives must be transposed into national legislation, and in the case of the latter directive, it must be transposed by 1 December of this year.
We are not therefore in two completely identical situations from a legal point of view. With regard to the obligation to join the euro, the Treaty does not stipulate any maximum time limit, nor the rules for implementation, but leaves it to the convergence assessment that is carried out every two years. In the case that you give as an example, however, that of energy security, there are directives that must be applied by the Member States, and in the event of non-compliance the relevant infringement procedures are applied."@en1
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