Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-24-Speech-3-241"
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"en.20080924.31.3-241"2
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"Madam President, we have listened very attentively to what Mr Radwan has to say. The Bavarian election campaign casts a long shadow. Yes, Mr Radwan, some of what you say is absolutely right. The market has regulated it, but the US taxpayer is footing the bill. It is the state which is paying the price.
In a debate last November about the European Union's role in globalisation, I made the following comment: 'The Wild West capitalism that dominates the financial markets is threatening entire economies, including the US economy now, and needs international rules. We need control, transparency and restrictions on the power of the financial markets.' In response, the leader of the ALDE said: ‘Mr President, we have just heard the language of the past’. At least he is not present for today's debate, which will obviously enhance its quality. What I said, however, was not the language of the past. Now, more than ever, control and government supervision of a deregulated market – which has no respect for anything or anyone – are the way forward.
I therefore have one thing to add, if I may. Of course, we must act swiftly, but we also must act in the area which is closest to my heart and the hearts of my colleagues here in the European Parliament. The speculation bubble will not burst: even if we ban short sales for the time being, they will be back. Another thing which we are bound to see happen again is that investors will be encouraged to speculate on rising food prices, for example. Food price rises occur when there is less food available. That means that those who have an interest in high food prices must ensure that the supply of food is reduced. However, food scarcity means hunger in the world, and if we have a system which makes it possible for hunger in some regions of the world to generate profits in others, our 700 billion dollar rescue package will not help us. Sooner or later, the system, in all its perversity, will have bitter consequences for humankind as a whole.
What we are discussing here, then, is not about short-term necessity. It is about how we can guarantee humane social development for the long term.
What we are witnessing at present is not only the bankruptcy of investment banks and major insurance companies. It is the bankruptcy of an economic philosophy which has been 'sold' to us for years: a philosophy which claims that in a supposedly modern economy, growth and prosperity are generated through speculation, not in the real world. That is the system that is going bankrupt now.
Incidentally, Mr Radwan, we have a very clear memory of the Katiforis report. You are an astute politician, I will give you that. You are standing for election to the Bavarian State Parliament on Sunday. Good luck with that. However, the person who applied the brakes to the Katiforis report was you, Mr Radwan. That is also something that we recall very clearly.
Charlie McCreevy is not here, which is a pity. Joaquín Almunia has presented a very sound analysis. Commissioner Almunia, I would ask you to brief your colleague Mr McCreevy on the measures which are necessary and which we must now adopt. I do not know where he is. Perhaps he is back at the race track; perhaps the betting shops at the race track are better regulated than the international financial markets. However, one thing is clear: we expect the Commission to adopt the measures that are possible and necessary, and we expect this action by the end of the year, or by spring at the latest.
This means, for example, adopting rules for the credit rating agencies, and doing so very swiftly. It is vital, too, to decouple City bonuses from short-term speculative profits. That is a very important point. If a manager knows that he himself will bank 5% of a billion that he generates in speculative profits, because his bonus is coupled to the speculative billion, then it is only human nature that he will attempt to generate the billion in profits by whatever means, whatever the cost: even if tens of thousands of jobs are lost as a result, which is what we have seen happening all over the world in recent decades.
Without turning a hair, the financial managers – the smart young things we run into here in the corridors – are wrecking entire companies and entire business locations, with all the social ills that this entails. The costs of this devastation are included in the 700 billion which the US taxpayers now have to invest in rescuing the major banks and insurance companies. The amateurism of governance in the US is apparent from the fact that even in this massive crisis, it is these major corporations which are being rescued, costing ordinary taxpayers more than 700 billion dollars from the US budget. Unfortunately, the fates of these ordinary taxpayers, their debts and mortgages do not feature in the US Government's rescue plan. A perfect example, once again, of how profits are privatised and losses nationalised. That must stop as well.
We heard all about it in Monday's debate. I almost have the impression that we should be handing out membership forms for the Social Democratic Party to the PPE-DE Group: it seems that they cannot change their opinions fast enough, and the Liberals, I have to say, are even worse."@en1
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