Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-06-20-Speech-3-052"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20070620.3.3-052"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to begin by thanking this Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the rapporteur, Mr Langen, for the speed with which they have examined the convergence reports on Cyprus and Malta approved on 16 May by the European Commission and by the European Central Bank.
Ladies and gentlemen, with this debate on Cyprus and Malta's request to join the euro zone, this is the fourth time that the European institutions have given their opinion on the membership of the zone. The first of them took place in 1998 and it was aimed at identifying which countries would initially make up the euro zone on 1 January 1999. On that occasion it was decided that eleven Member States would join the zone. Two years later, in 2000, Greece’s request was analysed and it was agreed that Greece could join the euro zone from 1 January 2001. Last year, all of the European institutions debated and agreed that Slovenia would join the euro zone on 1 January 2007. Finally, we have this request from Cyprus and Malta, which I hope will be definitively approved by the European Council and Ecofin on 10 July.
In no way can it be said, therefore, that the euro zone is a closed club, as has sometimes been claimed. It is a club that is entirely open to all members that wish to join it and which are prepared and fulfil the conditions for reaching that stage.
Following these four procedures for setting up and enlarging the euro zone, from next year it will have fifteen Member States, another two have an opt-out clause (the United Kingdom and Denmark) and a further ten Member States do not yet belong to the zone and I hope that they will join over the next few years.
Without making any prediction as to when all of the conditions for joining the euro zone may be met, I believe that over the next few years, practically every year we European institutions are going to have to give our opinion on new memberships of the zone in accordance with the Treaty, which declares the euro the official currency of the Member States of the Union.
In Articles 121 and 122 the Treaty also stipulates which criteria determine whether a Member State meets the conditions for adopting the single currency and establishes the procedure to be followed by the European institutions. With regard to the motion for a resolution that the honourable Members have prepared on these procedures for consulting Parliament with a view to the enlargement of the zone, I would like to refer to this aspect in the second part of my speech.
According to the Treaty, the procedure must involve five actors: the Commission, the European Central Bank, Parliament, the European Council and the Ecofin Council. However, the Treaty does not contain any specific provision regarding the time limits for each of the institutions to issue their opinion.
On the four occasions on which we have given our opinion, a similar timetable has been followed: firstly, the request for entry into the zone by the Member State or States, which is usually presented at the beginning of the year prior to the year in which they wish to join the euro zone; secondly, the Commission and the European Central Bank’s assessment of whether or not the conditions are met, which is carried out in spring; thirdly, the Council’s definitive decision, which takes account of the opinion of Parliament and the debate in the European Council, which normally takes place in the middle of the year prior to the introduction; and finally the adoption of the euro by the Member State or States on 1 January of the following year.
There are a series of determining factors in these steps, and I would like to refer to them because they affect all of the institutions. Firstly, why is the euro introduced on 1 January? In view of the enormous legal, economic, fiscal, accounting and practical implications of changing currency it would be extremely unwise to consider a date other than 1 January to adopt the euro and I believe that there is general agreement amongst everybody on that.
Secondly, the Member State should be allowed a period of time to carry out the preparations for joining the euro in an orderly and effective manner and, on the basis of our experience of previous enlargements, we can state that, in the interest of the citizens of the country in question, who would suffer most from the consequences of a badly-prepared adoption of the euro, it is desirable for the process of decision-making by the European institutions to be completed several months in advance of the 1 January on which notes and coins are introduced and the irrevocable exchange rate in the country joining the euro takes effect.
These are the determining factors in practice and neither of them are in the hands of the Commission, of course. What does fall to the Commission, however, in cooperation with the European Central Bank, is the adoption of the convergence report on whether or not the criteria have been fulfilled. The date on which the Commission must adopt the convergence report is determined, firstly, by when the Member State presents its request – the Commission cannot decide when a Member State is to present that request – and, secondly, by when the Commission has the reliable and rigorous data that it needs in order to carry out an appropriate, rigorous and accurate assessment of whether or not the convergence criteria have been fulfilled.
Tomorrow in Brussels, the European Council will debate the enlargement of the euro zone to these two countries and we all trust that on 10 July, following the positive agreement of the European Council tomorrow, Ecofin will take the final legal decision to enlarge the euro zone to these two countries.
The date of the Commission’s convergence report therefore depends, on the one hand, on when the Member State presents the request and, on the other, on when the Commission can be provided with the appropriate, rigorous and accurate data required in order to carry out the assessment.
In 1998 and 2000, the Commission generally adopted the convergence reports at the beginning of May. In 2006 and 2007, the approval took place in the middle of May because, since 2005, the time limit for the Member States to communicate the data on their budgetary situation has been put back by a month, from 1 March to 1 April. This has been done in order to acquire accurate and rigorous information on the budgetary execution for the previous year of the Member State applying to join the euro zone. Experience indicated that the notifications of 1 March did not include all of the accurate data required in order to provide a sufficient picture of how the previous budgetary year had been concluded.
Under these circumstances, if we bear in mind that Cyprus and Malta fulfilled the exchange rate stability criterion on 2 May of this year, the Commission has had two weeks, as happened last year in the case of Slovenia, to draw up and adopt the convergence reports. The point I wish to make through this perhaps overly detailed explanation, is that all of the institutions have tight deadlines within which to take decisions in this procedure.
The time limit available to Parliament is determined, on the one hand, by the approval of the convergence report by the Commission and the Central Bank, but also, on the other, by the dates decided upon by the Council for its decision-making procedure, both in the European Council and in the meeting of the Ecofin Council, and that is clearly not in the hands of the Commission.
In any event, the President of the Commission, Mr Barroso, has written a letter to President Poettering indicating that the Commission is willing to explore ways for each institution to be able to exercise the competences assigned to it by the Treaty in the best possible way within this procedure, and the Commission and I personally would like to say to you once again, in response to this Parliament’s motion for a resolution, that we are willing to seek an agreement amongst the three institutions on a procedure that will improve the way in which we work, in view of the objective limitations we face when making decisions in this area.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs is perfectly aware, and all of you should be aware, that the Commission and myself are of course entirely at your service when it comes to providing any information available before these time periods elapse – with regard to the economic situation of the candidate countries and the degree of compliance with the convergence criteria – even before the Member States present their requests.
Both this Parliament and the Ecofin Council of 5 June agree with the analysis of the Commission and the Central Bank with regard to Cyprus and Malta’s compliance with the convergence criteria laid down in the Treaty.
At the meeting held with the coordinators of Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs on 7 June, I had the opportunity to explain to you that we in the Commission have been provided with full and reliable information on these two countries for the purposes of drawing up the convergence reports.
There is confusion in certain documents accompanying the draft resolution between data relating to the quarterly financial accounts and the data that is notified twice a year by the countries under the excessive deficit procedure, data relating to deficit and to debt. I must say once again to this plenary of Parliament that, with regard to the information necessary in order to take decisions on excessive deficit procedures, the Commission has no reservations in terms of the quality of the data provided by Malta and Cyprus. No reservations of any kind.
With regard to Malta, the Commission issued an opinion on the criterion on the sustainability of public finances, conditional upon the Ecofin Council’s approval of the abrogation of the excessive deficit procedure which had been opened up for this country in 2004 and the Ecofin of 5 June has confirmed this point, bringing an end to the excessive deficit procedure with regard to Malta.
There are also precedents with regard to an approval in the convergence report conditional upon fulfilling conditions, either in terms of the stability of the exchange rate or the declaration of excessive deficit. With regard to Malta’s compliance with this criterion, therefore, there is no kind of particular situation or exception. The general procedure applied has been the one applied in many other previous cases to many other countries.
Over the coming weeks and once the Council’s positive decision has been confirmed with regard to the enlargement of the euro zone to Cyprus and Malta, the Commission will issue the two reports on each country's state of preparedness for joining the euro. I am also aware of certain honourable Members’ concerns in this regard. That report on the degree of preparedness for the change of notes and coins is not the same as the convergence reports. It is not a convergence criterion and the Commission regularly publishes, as we will do over the coming weeks, reports and communications focussing on this issue.
Under these circumstances, ladies and gentlemen, we are able to predict that on 1 January 2008 the euro zone will have fifteen Member States with the accession of Cyprus and Malta. This is an extremely positive step for those two countries, for the euro zone and for the whole of the European Union. The euro is undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements of European integration and the greater the number of citizens enjoying its advantages, the more the Union’s capacity to offer all of its citizens greater guarantees of prosperity and social wellbeing will be recognised."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples