Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-25-Speech-3-020"
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".
To be serious, I suppose we are already succumbing to a touch of pre-election rhetoric. Let us try to look at these matters seriously and find unity among the 27 countries, each of which has its own history and each of which is experiencing different symptoms from the ongoing financial crisis or different impacts on the real economy. If we cannot agree on a joint approach then it will not matter who had what starting position at the beginning of this problem because we will all pay the price through a domino effect. That is point number one.
In conclusion I would like to say something about social impacts. Here I must return to the Tripartite and applaud the role of both social partners. We did not talk about how much money we would give to people. We talked about how to prepare people for this situation or for a potentially similar future situation by boosting skills, boosting education and supporting SMEs which create the bulk of jobs. At the current time, of course, the cost of labour is falling because we want to keep people in employment for as long as possible, because getting them back into employment is several times more expensive than keeping them in employment.
Workforce mobility. I am really looking forward to the debates in the various national parliaments, and especially my own, over how we want to amend labour law in order to achieve a more flexible and more mobile workforce. This is the barrier to a solution. It is necessary to ensure rapid growth in jobs and a rapid solution to the predicament of people who have got into this situation through no fault of their own.
I would like to say in conclusion something about the EU-US summit. I am enormously appreciative of the fact that after the G20 in London and after the summit in Strasbourg-Kehl the US administration headed by Barack Obama will coming to Prague. This has enormous symbolic value for us and we are also inviting the President of the European Parliament as I sense a certain disapproval over the failure of the US president to visit the European Parliament. There will not be much time for discussion but in my opinion we need to know what the US wants, what we want and to reach an agreement. We definitely do not want to erect new barriers – that is after all the main aim of Euro-Atlantic civilisation as a whole.
I would finally like to say something about the remarks of Mrs Bobošíková. The Czech administration is managing the situation very well so far. I simply do not agree that we might make some sort of organisational slip-up, that we might fail to manage one of the most demanding presidencies of recent years, because we have repeatedly been confronted with a wide range of problems that would have been difficult for anyone to predict. Our level of flexibility, our level of creativity, our ability to respond, to act and to look for compromises surely do not merit such harsh criticism. The current situation where the Czech Republic has lost a confidence motion also happened in Denmark and Italy, while in France there was a change of government, albeit as a result of elections. I do not view the situation in such a poor light and I can assure you that the Czech Presidency will not suffer through this in any way and that all of us who have responsibility for managing the EU agenda will undoubtedly do just that.
I did not criticise the US approach for the sake of it, but rather because I wanted to point out the advantage possessed by the EU. This advantage consists in an extensive social programme, making it possible for us to avoid investing such colossal sums in the social stabilisation of people who have got into problems. The system quite simply works. Our one major task is to keep the system in operation and to guarantee for EU citizens the same social standards as they had before the crisis. In my opinion this is definitely not a minor task and it will cost a lot of money. We have decided on some very concrete measures and the figures of EUR 5, 50 or 75 billion demonstrate, in my opinion, the European Council’s clear commitment to respond in a concrete way to the situation in hand not just through general measures within this or that framework but through very concrete steps.
There is a great difference between proclaiming fine words on a street corner and putting them into practice. Our common aim now is to implement all the steps we have been talking about, to put them into practice and to look for feedback. No one has a precise idea – and I can state in all seriousness that not even the macro-economists have any idea – what the effects of these various steps might be. However, we do know for sure that someone will have to pay for this rescue and for the party. It would be highly irresponsible of us not to consider the aftermath, even though we do not know how long the situation will go on for, and not to consider who will pay for it all and what effect it will have on the euro zone and on the Stability and Growth Pact, and what chance it will give to countries such as my own to join and adopt the euro. I will not be responding to the comments of party leader Mr Schulz. Berlusconi did that before the last elections and I have no wish to repeat his mistake. I think it is not necessary to respond to some attacks. Nevertheless, it is impossible that banknote printers will be the only ones to profit from this crisis. That would not be a good thing.
The job summit. We proposed a full format to the European Council, of course. José Manuel Barroso and I shared this idea because we feel the same need as you to draw the social partners into discussion at a higher level than the Tripartite and to discuss with them problems connected with employment, with implementing various national packages, with the effect on employment and with the next steps that we take in order to protect EU citizens from the impact of this crisis. It was not our decision that this summit would be a troika. I understand the fears expressed by many Heads of State or Government and I myself was wholly in favour of the full format. On the other hand we should not forget that it was only an informal summit, the conclusions of which are not binding. From this standpoint the reduced format might be an advantage, because it means that the recommendations of the informal summit can be presented at the regular June Council where they can perhaps be unequivocally approved. In my opinion this is not such a grave error and there is no need to make a political problem out of it. The important thing is that we found the courage to call this summit, that we invited the social partners to attend, that we will prepare it with them over the long term – ahead of the job summit there will be three round tables in Stockholm, Madrid and Prague – and that we are trying to reach conclusions that will be valuable for the June Council.
The Lisbon Treaty. I will allow myself one joke today. I think that the telephone number to call for questions about the future of the Lisbon Treaty is no longer that of the Government Office and Prime Minister Topolánek, but rather that of the Parliament and Jiří Paroubek. I have to say that responsibility for moving the situation forwards really lies with those who created the situation. I am doing everything, of course, to ensure that I keep to my commitment in order not to have to erase my signature from the stone in front of the monastery of Saint Geronimo in Lisbon.
The Commission. The December summit of the Council made a clear decision and we are aware of the complexity of the situation. I have to say that our ambition is to achieve political agreement at the June European Council. We will of course consult with you: it is essential to have discussions with the European Parliament. In this context we are even considering that if there is sufficient interest from the European Parliament then we could postpone the June Council by a week in order to extend our 10 days of debate into 17 days. I think that 17 days would give us enough time for the debate. These consultations are essential, but nevertheless before we take a formal decision it will of course be necessary to determine whether we are proceeding under the Treaty of Nice or under the Lisbon Treaty, as this will allow us to anticipate what form the agreement will take, whether the number of countries will be the same, whether all of them will have a commissioner, etc. We must take the results of the European elections into account and all I can say is that we will proceed in accordance with the approved, standard procedure, because we are in a kind of legal vacuum and in a situation that must be dealt with politically and in practical terms.
Further discussions related to questions about regulation versus stimulus measures. I have already said in my introduction that in my opinion the EU has adopted an entirely correct approach by not opting for one or the other but saying only that we have rescued the banking sector and now all that remains is to clean it up. The Commission has drawn up a plan on assessing individual bad assets (impact assessments) and on dealing with the problem. In my opinion the only way to boost confidence in the banking sector and also the confidence of the banking sector is to clean up these banks. The Czech Republic and Sweden know how to do this and the US treasury secretary has submitted his own plan for the US. In my opinion this is the only option for tackling the situation. I have already mentioned the stimulus packages. The second pillar of this structure is regulation, which lies partially in your hands. It is also partially mentioned in the Larosière report, which is a fine piece of work. It will involve the regulation of hedge funds and private equity funds and it will of course sort out the offshore sector. You must surely see the great progress over this matter and we are preparing in these matters for a potential next crisis. We are not under time pressure from day to day to come up with the new regulation. We are under time pressure to limit any possible future problems.
There was also discussion about the role of the IMF. We agreed that the IMF should be the sponsor of these future solutions, but the problem is not that we would have a small number of institutions wielding little power. The problem hinges on whether the largest players on the global financial market will respect these institutions as this was not the case in the past. This is anyway a fundamental debate and it will also be an issue for the G20: the acceptance of an enhanced role for the IMF, the World Bank and the OECD in the system of international global financial institutions and respect for these institutions and their findings.
I think it would be good to say something about the Eastern Partnership. Yesterday I met President Yushchenko again and I welcome this agreement and the signing of the agreement between the European Commission and Ukraine. It marks a significant step towards stabilising the situation. I was recently in Azerbaijan where I spoke with President Aliyev. The EU must remain a sort of lighthouse for these countries. This is not a question of erecting new barriers, it is a question of the EU having a mission and its mission is to expand the area of security, the area of freedom, the area of prosperity and the area of solidarity. There are no borders here, and by that we are not saying that these states will become EU members tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or any time at all. If the light is extinguished in this lighthouse, development in these countries will not be under our control. We must draw these countries into discussion, provide them with unrestricted travel opportunities, provide them with economic cooperation, provide exchanges between educational institutions and schools and provide better governance. I think that this is our duty and in this sense the Eastern Partnership provides clear evidence that we are moving in the right direction. In response to the words of Mr Bielan I would say that it was a major success to get the EUR 600 million approved at all. We did not all agree on it, there was no unanimous agreement, but rather it was the maximum possible compromise to which the 27 Member States would agree."@en1
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