Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-11-Speech-3-293"
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"en.20070711.27.3-293"2
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".
Madam President, I am taking the floor at the end of the debate in order to make a few remarks further to what was said, or not said.
That being said, France is fully committed; France will do everything it can to meet the objective in 2010, just as we all made a commitment to do in April this year. France is not the only country to have problems in meeting the objective by the deadline set. We will be as strict and tenacious in analysing the results of the other countries, which may not perhaps manage, under the conditions set, to meet the objective at the desired time, but Eurogroup expects all the Member States of Eurogroup to meet their medium-term objective in 2010, at the latest. As for France, it will submit an updated stability programme to us in September so that, together, the Commission and Eurogroup can see whether the structural reforms begun by the French Government will be likely to lead to the desired result, that is to say, the return of buoyant French growth and the guarantee of the viability of French public finances in the longer term. I am quoting the Stability and Growth Pact in its amended version.
With regard to the enlargement of the zone, and independently of the debate that we could have on the accession criteria, I should like to repeat before Parliament that, of course, the Eurozone and the Eurogroup are neither a zone nor an exclusive club. All Member States that meet the accession criteria not only can join the Eurozone, but must join it. No member of the Eurozone, State or politician can turn down a request to join the Eurozone. On this point, the Treaties are crystal-clear.
We can of course, and will no doubt, discuss this, but we must discuss it in depth, and not avoid the fundamental questions, such as: should we base the criteria more on a nominal reading, as the Treaties call on us to do, or should we think instead about real convergence? I have already guarded the new Member States – an expression that I still detest – against the notion of real convergence. The Member States, those that are referred to as the new Member States, in fact have nothing to gain by our having recourse to analyses that are based more on real convergence than on a nominal reading, but this is a debate that we can have over the next few months.
I did not understand very well the question that my friend, Mr Goebbels, put to me at the end of his speech, when he questioned me about the Charter of Fundamental Rights in Europe. I do not really see the connection with the debate that we are currently having, unless it is to suggest that there is no more reason for the United Kingdom to request an opt-out concerning the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and that there is no reason for it to persist in wanting to opt-out at any price on monetary matters. I am, moreover, of the opinion that the United Kingdom will one day apply the declaration of fundamental rights on its territory – because the time will come when it wants it, for one cannot forever defy common sense – before applying the single currency there.
The virtuous union of the declaration of fundamental rights and that of the Council of Europe, which relates to the same subject, will therefore create a solution that, by combining these two sources of law, will enable the European Court of Justice to ensure that, on this point as on others, praetorian law will have demonstrated that it is sometimes ahead of the reality that is shaped by those who want more Europe and those who, unfortunately, want less. The great contribution that the European Parliament makes to our debates is, as a general rule, to find itself on the side of those who want more Europe. We have nothing to gain from wanting less Europe each day or from selling off the Europe that we have in sections that we make available to those who would like to dismantle a project that has not stopped expanding or impressing the world ever since we started work on it.
I shall begin by mentioning wage policy, since this is a subject that I am dealing with and that concerns me. I remain convinced that, if the current policies are pursued, that is, the policies that consist in further widening the gap that exists between those who work and those who say that they provide work, we are heading for disaster. Europeans, especially simple and modest Europeans, who are no less intelligent than the others, do not understand this gap that is getting bigger every day between those who have and those who aspire to have.
I believe that several us of have said this, including the President of the European Central Bank, who recently opposed these ever-widening gaps. I believe that we must stick with the principle of wage moderation. I believe that wage moderation can be explained simply: so long as wages evolve in line with advances in productivity, wage moderation will result in neither a loss of competitiveness nor surplus inflation. If, on the other hand, wages were to deviate from the path mapped out for them by a development in productivity, we could – and certainly would – have a problem. I believe that we need to look into a modern way of allowing as many people as possible to share in the fruits of growth. Not everything depends on nominal wage increases. We must look into the possible forms of worker participation; we must look into forms of profit-sharing; we must look into other forms of employee training that could enable as many people as possible to share in the fruits of economic growth, which, I might add, should not be vilified or criticised in principle, as it tends to be by some quarters. Rather, it must be perceived as an instrument enabling the Eurozone and the European Union to increase their rate of participation on the labour markets and, by extension, to reduce their unemployment rate in relation to what we are experiencing at present. We want growth because we want jobs; we do not want growth to be an objective in itself.
As regards the free movement of workers within the Eurozone, I will say – together, I might add, with the President of the European Central Bank, which goes to show you just how completely aligned our positions are – that, yes, there is a contradiction between the fact of being part of the same monetary area and of not sharing fully in the four freedoms. I therefore agree with those who say that Slovenian workers, for example, should be able to move freely within the Eurozone. However, you will not find, either in the Treaty, or in the accession arrangements, provisions enabling us to say that, yes, Slovenian workers must be able to move within the territory of the 12 members of the Eurozone but not within the territory of the others, any more than you will find provisions enabling us to say that, no, Czech workers, Slovakian workers and Polish workers cannot move, only those who are members of the Eurozone are permitted to do so. I did not write all the passages of the Treaty, or even the smallest part of it, but you will not escape the cumbersomeness that at times characterises all of these texts. It follows, then, that this is a debate that we must have, but we need to realise that we cannot resolve the issue at the level of the Eurozone alone; we really must resolve it at the level of the European Union as a whole.
Much has been said about the person whom I called ‘our evening visitor’, last Monday in the Eurogroup. This is, moreover, Mr Hamon, an expression that I have taken from a period in the history of the Elysée Palace that does not entirely correspond to that of today, since others, before the President of the Eurogroup, used to be in the habit of receiving evening visitors. This was more a phenomenon of the 1980s, in France. In Europe, this phenomenon is rather new, and we will see whether this is the start of a great tradition or whether it will amount to the epiphenomenon that was.
That being said, I should like briefly to point out some commitments made by France. Firstly, France has not put an end to budget consolidation, France has not started to put its financial consolidation effort on hold. Secondly, the 2008 deficit ...
... Yes indeed, Mr Goebbels, we shall see. I am not responsible for French budgetary policy, so we shall see ... Finally, I should like to say to you, my dear friend, Mr Goebbels, that, if France’s public finances were in the same health as the finances of the country for which I am responsible, we would not be having this debate, and we would not have had our visitor on Monday evening."@en1
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"(Addressing Mr Goebbels, who had heckled him)"1
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