Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-19-Speech-2-223"
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"en.20080219.30.2-223"2
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"Madam President, it really does no good to keep talking about the Lisbon Agenda, because every year for the past eight years it has been universally acknowledged that it has not worked very well.
This report, with its huge list of what the European Union should do, completely misses the point. Rather than the EU being the force that drives growth and productivity, it is the EU, with its endless interference in business, that is holding back the economies of Europe.
Another point which is ignored is that the different economies of the EU have vastly different structures and performances. It makes no sense to talk about the European economy as a single entity. Contrast Germany, which has been enjoying some modest economic growth, with the southern EU countries variously afflicted with huge trade deficits, collapsing housing booms and enormous government debts. What these countries desperately need is lower interest rates and devaluation, which cannot be delivered because they are all in the euro area. If the European Central Bank reduces interest rates to provide some assistance, it will have to ignore its inflation target, which would certainly not please the Germans.
Surely, rather than continuing to add millions more words to the sterile discussion of the Lisbon Strategy, some attention should have been paid to these rather more pressing issues. But I suppose that would highlight the fundamental weakness of economic and monetary union, which is that a single currency is not a sustainable long-term arrangement for a group of widely differing economies with independent governments."@en1
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