Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-17-Speech-1-060"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20081117.21.1-060"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Mr President of the Eurogroup, ladies and gentlemen, firstly I must, on behalf of the Commission, thank the two rapporteurs, Mrs Berès and Mr Langen, and all those who worked on this excellent report.
This strategy must be based on principles and priorities, and also on instruments for taking action which will allow us to speak with a single voice, thus reinforcing the influence of each and every European and, in particular, of the euro area. This is also an issue of governance. I totally agree with many of the governance aspects that you have included in your report and I hope that the Finance Ministers in the Ecofin Council and in the Eurogroup will also agree.
Mrs Berès – I am about to finish – said in her speech that the Commissioner and the Commission should once again draw the attention of the Finance Ministers to the conclusions of this report. There is a Molière character who said that he thought he had been speaking in verse, but had in fact been speaking in prose without realising. I believe that the discussions now being held by the Ministers in the Eurogroup under the presidency of Jean Claude Juncker, by the Ministers in the Ecofin Council and by the Ministers at the Washington meeting are discussions which fit perfectly with the priorities and need for coordination reflected in the Commission’s report and in your report, although some of them are probably not aware of this.
The quality of this report on the tenth anniversary of Economic and Monetary Union is to be congratulated. The cooperation between the various political groups, in a demonstration of the high degree of cohesion within this Parliament, should also be congratulated. This is yet another asset and another positive element of this Economic and Monetary Union, both in its present and in its future.
This Economic and Monetary Union has existed for ten years. That was the starting point for our analysis and also the starting point for the report produced by the Commission. It was also the starting point for the Commission communication that I had the honour of presenting to you on 7 May. However, the tenth anniversary of the euro and Economic and Monetary Union has coincided with an exceptionally difficult and complex economic situation. This allows us to analyse this Economic and Monetary Union in terms of how useful the euro, our single currency, our sign of integration, can be in tackling such a situation, which we have never experienced before.
The conclusion is that the first ten years of the euro have been very positive. In terms of the usefulness of Economic and Monetary Union in tackling the current situation, the conclusion is also positive. We are living through difficult times but we have in our hands an extraordinarily useful instrument to tackle these difficulties.
Obviously, the conclusions of the analysis in our communication that I presented here on 7 May and the conclusions of your report must be put into practice so that this instrument can be usefully applied at this moment in time. I agree with the two rapporteurs that coordination is a key element.
At the meeting in Washington this weekend, there was also talk about coordination. Without coordination, we cannot tackle this situation effectively. No one can solve their economic problems in such a situation as this without coordinating their economic policies. This was evident a few weeks ago when we had to confront the risk of collapse in the financial system. It is also evident now that we are having to face the prospect of a recession in most of our economies, and when we are, for the first time in our lives, even facing a risk of deflation.
Budgetary policies must be coordinated. The report on Economic and Monetary Union talks about the need to increase budgetary surveillance, to expand the way in which fiscal and budgetary policies are coordinated, as Mr Langen said. However, we must also bear in mind sustainability, as Mrs Berès mentioned, the quality of public finances and the fact that we have a system of rules in the Stability and Growth Pact, which was revised in 2005. This revision is now proving very useful, because at times of economic recovery it allowed us to move forward with fiscal consolidation. The euro area ended 2007 almost breaking even – for the first time in its history, with a deficit of 0.6-0.7% – but this means that we now have sufficient flexibility so that our fiscal policy can really help to sustain demand, as our monetary policy should also do.
The conclusions of our report are particularly useful now in terms of the need to link budgetary policies with structural reforms and, in this respect, I agree with Mrs Berès: we must review and adapt the national Lisbon programmes, the national reform programmes, and we must also review the stability and convergence programmes of the Member States and adapt them to the current situation. We will be discussing this in coming months and, for this reason, as you know, the Commission will, on 26 November, present an action plan incorporating objectives, instruments, policies and commitments. This plan will indicate the need to adapt the national programmes in order to unite national policies and make them convergent and consistent with a European strategy, policies and instruments. I agree with you and with the report that we must reinforce the external dimension of the euro and of Economic and Monetary Union.
As Mr Juncker is well aware, we must have a strategy in relation to the multilateral organisations and the other main parties whereby we can defend our interests in terms of our currency and our Economic and Monetary Union and thus defend the economic interests of the European Union."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples