Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-04-22-Speech-3-058"
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"en.20090422.5.3-058"2
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Madam President, the European Council has decided to double the ‘balance of payments’ facility for countries outside the euro zone, and on 8 April the Commission introduced the concrete provisions designed to turn this proposal into a reality.
To conclude, the Commission has implemented a new mechanism to ensure that repayments will enable the European Union’s budget to cope with these demands. We support this amendment to the regulation and we hope that this Parliament will give its full support to this worthwhile proposal.
Here at the European Parliament we wish to accept our responsibilities and to enable the Ecofin Council to act promptly for, as we see it, this proposal contains a sign of solidarity towards non-member countries of the euro zone that is of vital importance for tackling the root of this crisis.
Back in November, we were already doubling this ‘balance of payments’ facility, since it rose from EUR 12 to 25 billion, and, today, to take account not only of the reality, the severity of the crisis that we are in and that is having a particular impact on countries outside the euro zone, but also, without doubt, of the European Parliament’s timetable, we propose to you that this facility be doubled, to bring it up to EUR 50 billion. This is in light of the fact that what we decided in November has already enabled support to be given to Hungary, to Latvia and, yesterday, to Romania.
We feel that this is necessary, and we have held a debate among ourselves, which I will not hide from you, to learn whether this assessment of countries outside the euro zone should be done exclusively on a case-by-case basis, or whether, in reality, there was basically a more global situation that was that of countries outside the euro zone.
That is why, in our resolution, we propose that the issue of enlargement conditions be considered and the extent to which membership of the zone can be a protective factor be confirmed.
We are also very insistent in calling for the European Parliament to be informed of the substance of the analyses of the crisis situations these countries are facing. This is because, when the Commission grants its loans to countries outside the euro zone, there is a certain transparency and substance to the information on the behaviour of private banks and on the behaviour of operators which has led to this crisis, that the European Parliament must be informed of.
Lastly, we believe that all possible mechanisms for tackling this crisis should be used and implemented by the Commission. This is particularly the case as regards Article 100 of the Treaty, which would also permit the implementation of special mechanisms for countries within the euro zone. We believe it is essential to explore these given the severity of the crisis.
There are two final elements. Firstly, as we see it, the conditionality of these loans is an element for discussion; we understand that. Generally speaking, the Commission carries out this work in harmony with the IMF. What we want is the creation of a working group to look at how these memorandums are drawn up and how they take account of the actual situation of the country in question, but also of the European Union’s overall strategy, particularly as regards arbitrage between investments, purchasing power support and conditionality in terms of a strategy on environmental growth and sustainable development.
Lastly, we identify in this mechanism evidence of the ability of the European Union and of the Commission to borrow on the international markets, and we therefore believe that we have here a useful foundation on which to base a debate that we are also conducting on European borrowing and on the capacity of the European Union to finance future strategies and investments through such borrowing."@en1
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