Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-10-08-Speech-3-032"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20081008.14.3-032"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, I would also like to begin with the referendum in Ireland – that is, the Treaty of Lisbon. You are right, Commission President – we need the Treaty more than ever. Therefore, I am of the opinion that we also need a stable foundation in order to put it into effect, and that includes persuading the Irish people and Irish voters to vote in favour of this Treaty.
The President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Dennis Snower, who is not a member of the radical socialist movement, put it well in an interview when he said that the regulation of the financial markets had been neither sufficient nor appropriate and that was why the system did not work. Yes, he knows what he is talking about. However, those who for years have been asking to be allowed to create regulations have had to put up with being told by those of you on the right-hand side of this chamber that we were stuck in the 19th century. ‘The voice of the past,’ Mr Watson said of my demands in a recent debate here, when I called for regulation and transparency and when I talked about rating agencies and rules to achieve that. Well, the voice of the past has something to say: the rules of the past are the necessity for the future. That is the unequivocal answer that we give to counter this neoliberal mainstream, which has fallen apart in the classic way.
The difficulties that we are now facing will not be so easy to overcome. It will take a long time. During this long time, we must avoid one thing above all: a repetition, in the future, of what led to the current very serious developments. Therefore, when formulating the rules, we need to think very specifically about legal prohibition of certain types of speculation.
Nobody can tell me to what extent it is morally justified to bet on food shortages in international financial forums so that food prices will rise, because investing in the facilities of food companies brings high returns. A shortage of food creates hunger, but one man’s hunger is another man’s profit. That is a perverse system. There must be legislation to prevent such things. Commission President, perhaps this topic is something that the High Level Group on the architecture of the financial markets that you are putting together could consider.
To close, I would like to congratulate you. It is a good decision. I also want to say, however, that Parliament asked you to do this three years ago, in the Muscat report. You have ignored that request for three years. You are coming late to the matter, but at least you are coming, and for that, many thanks.
If the Irish Government cannot manage to do this before the European election, then we will decide the composition of the next European Parliament and the Commission on the basis of the Treaty of Nice. The matter will continue after that, however, because we need these reforms. We need them for enlargement, we need them to deal with crises, as we are currently experiencing once again, and in the time remaining until a new referendum is held in Ireland, we have sufficient time to find out exactly which sources the anti-Lisbon campaign is getting its funds from – the CIA, military-industrial powers in the United States, or whatever.
Listen: the people I was talking about are already interjecting. We know where they get their money from. We will investigate this much more closely, you can be sure of that!
Commission President, you gave an accurate description of the crisis that we are currently experiencing, but there are several further comments to be made about what you said. Do not be angry with me, but I must say that even though much of your speech was good, one thing alarmed me, and that is the composition of the steering group you are putting together to deal with the crisis. It is a matter of course that you are a member, and it is also appropriate for a commissioner as well qualified as Mr Almunia to be part of it. However, now you have told us that Mr McCreevy is someone you want to include in this steering group to deal with this crisis. If ever there was an apologist for misleading market radicalism in this House and in your Commission, it is Mr McCreevy.
With the best will in the world, you cannot make arsonists into firefighters! It simply will not work. As far as Commissioner Kroes is concerned, you mentioned that we had 8 000 banks in Europe. Why not ask Mrs Kroes what she thinks of the public banking system in the European Union. In my country there are public banks that have less in the way of state guarantees than private banks are now being given by various states. In my country, your Mrs Kroes has just done away with savings banks – with the help of the government of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, what is more! Trusting the cat to guard the cream is not the way out of this crisis!
For years here we have had to listen to the neoliberal dogma that the market would sort everything out. For years we have been told that the effects generated by the market would ‘trickle down’ and that in the end, everyone would benefit. What has actually happened is that those who were supposed to benefit from all this, the taxpayers, are having to foot the bill. In a crisis like this, that has to be said.
The house is on fire, so the fire must be put out. The measures are the correct ones – and you are right, they must be coordinated throughout Europe – because we need to establish confidence and regain trust, because we need to conquer fear, otherwise this fear will become a self-fulfilling prophecy and merely accelerate the collapse that we are trying to avoid. We support these measures, too, but let me add this: the house that has just burnt down cannot be rebuilt just as it was before. The new house must be different. It must be built on a firm foundation, a foundation with clear rules."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples