Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-17-Speech-1-103"
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"en.20081117.21.1-103"2
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"Mr President, I shall be very brief, since the majority of those who tried to lead this debate are no longer in the Chamber. Thus there is no need to respond to them.
For the rest, on the taxation of savings, we are three years ahead of the timetable on which we agreed. You are absolutely right, Mr Jonckheer, to call for the expansion of the range of financial products that are due to fall within the scope of this directive. With regard to tax havens, you will converse in the language of your country with your own government and you will discover that you have work to do.
For the rest, I would say that I have been impressed by the broad consensus that has resulted from the European Parliament’s debates, since we are almost all agreed in saying that the euro was a success. I am pleased to note that those who belong to the Euro Zone say so. I am pleased to note that those who would like their countries to become members of the Euro Zone say so too. I note that those who have always said that everything we do is utterly stupid maintain this view, which cannot be characterised any differently from the way in which they characterise our attitude. Consequently, within Parliament, there is nothing new, except to say that, a touch of anxiety – that is a polite way of saying it – has all the same filtered into our debates. This is caused by the financial and economic crisis that we are facing at the present time.
On this point, I should therefore like to say two things in response to a number of speakers. No one in Europe is radically arguing for an excessive budget consolidation. No one. We have a reformed Stability and Growth Pact. Some Members of this House did not agree with the reforms that we made to this Pact. They are the first ones today to commend the wisdom of the decisions that were taken in March 2005, when we applied a more economic perspective to the interpretation of this Stability and Growth Pact. This perspective allows the Member States and their budgets to breathe more easily today, even though we are entering a phase that is not depressive, but that makes the consolidation of public finances less straight forward.
The Member States that have been virtuous in terms of budget consolidation over the past few years have sufficient budget margins to enable them to react to the current economic crisis, which includes the structural aspects that we are facing at present. The Member States that were less virtuous are having greater difficulty in releasing the budget resources that would enable them to react to the crisis that we are experiencing right now.
However, throughout the Euro Zone, we have a duty to react to the crisis where economic policy is concerned. It is not enough to talk about budget stability. It is not enough to devote our efforts exclusively to the financial crisis. It is clear that the Euro Zone has to provide a strong and coordinated response to the economic crisis. We therefore have a few weeks in which to gather together all the elements we need in order to analyse and take action, so that we can formulate this practical and strong response. However, all those who are demanding greater coordination of economic policies must of course work towards this by trying not to anticipate economic policy decisions that they have not referred to their colleagues within the Eurogroup.
It is easy, within Parliament, to call for the coordination of economic policies. I would propose to you, on the basis of your Rules of Procedure, that you put forward an intergroup text, in which the large groups, acting as the European Parliament, call on the Eurogroup and on their respective national governments no longer to announce economic policy measures before they have referred them to their colleagues from the Eurogroup.
Urge your governments – it is easy to demand it here – urge your governments to respect the principle of coordinating economic policies. Make an intergroup resolution, and we shall see. We shall see, in two, three, four months’ time, whether the governments – and the political parties to which you belong are very often part of the governments that you would address – have done what you demanded of them. That would be credible, reasonable, logical, rational and consistent.
I am therefore saying that we need a strong and coordinated economic response to what is becoming more and more of an economic crisis. And, on the subject of wage policy, we will not say everything that we want to say, but everything that is worthy of being said.
You are right in saying that the socialist governments of the Greens in Germany have practised a wage policy that has reduced the purchasing power of German workers. The situation has improved since then. The same comment applies, moreover, to France, whose government was not, at the time – between 1998 and 2002-2003 – a reactionary one. It was quite the opposite, from what I understood. A little self-criticism, of course, would enrich the comments of certain people in a good way."@en1
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