Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-11-Speech-3-073"
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Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I agree with those who said that for a long time, the crisis has been underestimated and not properly understood. Therefore, it is probably a good thing if we can at least agree at the start that we do not know how serious this crisis will become. In addition, we do not know how long the crisis will last and therefore we also do not know whether we have already done enough. I am sorry for once to have to contradict Mr Juncker.
The European Investment Bank is doing whatever it can. We should thank the European Investment Bank for its highly flexible approach. However, it has now reached the limits of what it can do. It is already clear that it will not be possible to meet the lending requirements of large and small European companies in the second half of this year, because the European Investment Bank is already at its limits. Everyone should be aware that the situation will become very serious and therefore it is worthwhile considering whether we in this Parliament can improve the situation of European companies, for example, by quickly considering and adopting proposals from the Commission which aim to prevent European companies from having to pay unnecessary costs.
We have presented proposals which could result in European companies’ costs being reduced by up to EUR 30 billion per year. The rapid adoption of these proposals would make an important contribution to overcoming the crisis.
The Commission is convinced that in the run-up to this summit, the opportunities and risks of European integration will become clearer than they have seldom been before. The opportunities obviously involve gathering our forces together, acting in a coordinated and focused way, and using all our creativity with the aim of emerging stronger from this crisis. This will allow us to compensate for the fact that, unlike the United States of America, we cannot make central decisions which are implemented everywhere, but instead we must ensure that 27 Member States agree.
However, at the same time, the risks are more obvious than they have ever been – the risks which we will all be exposed to if one or more Member States in this situation opt for protectionism or economic nationalism instead of solidarity and a joint approach. Without a shared compass which will guide us through this crisis, we will unfortunately all get lost together in the fog that caused the crisis.
We do not even know whether what we have done will have an impact or not. At the moment, we do not even know that. The only thing that we really know is that we will not emerge from this crisis unless we are very quickly able to make the financial sector function again.
This was the start of the problem and, in the meantime, it has become relatively clear how all of this came about. We also know why the measures already taken to stabilise the financial sector have not had any impact, or at least not a satisfactory impact. This is because the banks are aware that they are still faced with a series of problems. The banks are currently making provision for risks because they know that some of the risks on their books have not yet been disclosed. We must take the appropriate political measures in this respect.
However, one thing is clear. The financial sector does not have the option of returning to the time before the crisis. Anyone who imagines that the state and the European Union is now responsible for regulating this, and that afterwards everything will go on just as before, is very much mistaken. It is clear that we need a robust, long-term supervisory system for the financial sector and the financial institutions which does not only cover Europe. It is very important that, together with our partners, we put in place a system of global governance. We will only be able to do this in cooperation with our partners if we Europeans take a clear, joint approach. The more we can agree on this question, the better our chances are of achieving the results we want. If the capitals of Europe send out conflicting signals to Washington, Beijing and Tokyo, the prospects of establishing a useful system of global governance are small.
However, we are agreed that the current situation is potentially highly explosive in social terms, simply because whatever we can do to stabilise the financial sector will not be sufficient to support companies in the real economy which are in difficulties as a result of the financial crisis. We all know that.
The European response to the crisis in the real economy, the crisis amongst businesses and industry, is a response which focuses on jobs. This really is not about dividends for shareholders or bonuses for managers. It is about ensuring that the people who have very little or, indeed, no responsibility for the crisis, in other words, the workers, can keep their jobs. It is essential for them to keep their jobs because otherwise, they cannot live an independent life in freedom and dignity.
We want to protect jobs in the European economy, which is why the spending programmes were necessary. We can argue about whether or not they could or should have been larger. However, the problem is that there is no flexibility in this respect in the Community budget. It is easy for us in the European Parliament or in the European Commission to say that we need a large economic recovery package, we must pump large amounts of money into the economy, because it will not be our money, we do not have any money. It will always be money from the Member States and please do not forget that the national parliaments, of course, also play a role here.
We have tried to ensure that the spending programmes are organised in such a way that the short-term necessities do not put the long-term objectives at risk. This is precisely what several speakers from all the parliamentary groups have said, in other words, that we are undergoing an economic transformation, a transformation to a low-carbon economy, to a resource-efficient economy and to a knowledge-based economy. This transformation must continue during the crisis. This is why we are telling companies not to cut back on research and development or on innovation and to keep their core workforce in place. The financial measures that we take must support these objectives. I agree with everyone who says that things could perhaps have been done better. However, we must always remember that the money which is being spent here is not European Union money. It is money from the Member States and in the Member States, there are other factors to be considered as well as what we believe to be right in this case. The economic model of the Lisbon Strategy, which was also discussed today, does not involve an independent market. The Lisbon Strategy is not based on the assumption that the best market economy is one which is left to develop on its own in radical free market terms. Instead, the strategy states that the market needs rules if it is to meet its social and environmental responsibilities. Politicians are responsible for establishing these rules and we must not be diverted from this task. This is why I believe that the objectives of the Lisbon Strategy remain unchanged and that ‘How is it that we have got into this crisis despite the Lisbon Strategy?’ is actually the wrong question to ask. A different economic strategy in Europe would not have been able to prevent the macroeconomic imbalances and the mistakes made on the international financial markets which led to this crisis.
Let me conclude by saying that we want to ensure that as many European companies as possible come through the crisis intact. This means that we must help them to obtain funding. At the moment, this seems to me to be the main problem, because the credit crunch is affecting both large and small organisations."@en1
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