Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-09-16-Speech-3-042"
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"Mr President, I believe we are all agreed that, in the current situation in which we still have to tackle huge and extensive challenges as a result of the crisis, the success of the G20 Pittsburgh Summit and the belief that, as a result of these meetings, we will start to find and apply solutions to the problems and challenges facing us, are extraordinarily important. We are, in fact, starting to see some significant signs of improvement in certain economic indicators, particularly in the growth of international trade and in the confidence of consumers and investors. As a result, all the items on the summit’s agenda should be, must be and I hope will be agreed by the Heads of State or Government and implemented following the meeting next week.
Lastly, someone said that the EU’s voice must be heard above the voices of the European members of the G20. I can assure you that, under the Swedish Presidency and using the voice of the European Commission, the EU’s voice is being heard. It is being listened to very attentively and respectfully because Europe, and not just one or two European countries, but the European Union was the organisation that started this process of global coordination. This clearly shows that more effective results can be achieved when there is true coordination.
One of the most important points, mentioned by many of you, is the need for clarification, for a clear message as to how the world’s major economies intend to keep coordinating their actions. The next step in the coordination of economic policy must be to define an exit strategy and commit to a decision as to when and how this strategy will be applied in a coordinated manner. We must learn – and I believe we have learnt – the lesson from the crisis of the twenty-ninth that the stimulus measures cannot be withdrawn too quickly, when the economy – as some of you have said – still needs crutches. However, we must also not use these stimulus measures for longer than necessary because, in that case, we would be repeating the conditions that led to the bubbles and imbalances which were the cause of this crisis. This is a very important issue, which must be clarified by the Pittsburgh Summit.
We must avoid repeating the errors of the past, not only in terms of macroeconomic policies, but also in terms of financial regulation and supervision. I believe that this commitment has been made very clear at previous summits. We must keep developing this commitment and honour those undertakings already made at both global level and, as in our case, at European level.
In this respect, I agree with those who have said in this morning’s debate that not everything should be reduced to the issue of pay. However, I also fully agree with those who say that the issue of pay is extremely important in economic, social, political and ethical terms. I believe that Europe is showing its leadership on this issue – as it has done on other issues on the G20 agenda – both through each of the Heads of State or Government and also through the European institutions themselves, the Presidency of the European Union and the Commission.
We should not forget that, in April of this year, the European Commission presented the Member States with recommendations on pay, which are almost exactly the same as those that the whole world is now proposing. We must continue to pay attention to the problems of the financial system – more capital, restructuring and correction of bank balance sheets – at both the European and global levels.
When you have a fully interconnected financial system, there is no point in us solving our problems within our borders if no one else is solving their problems at the same time. You must remember how, one year ago, on the day before the Lehman Brothers crisis, we still thought that we could avoid the worst problems of the financial crisis created in the United States. At the same time, it is absolutely true, as many of you have said, that, in the end, the political objective is not just to sort out the balance sheet of one bank or capitalise its liabilities. The fundamental problems are employment, the situation of our small and medium-sized enterprises, and the sustainability of our public services and social welfare systems.
However, without a functioning financial system, nothing else can be sustained. That is the challenge that must be tackled by the Pittsburgh Summit, or which the G20 must continue tackling at the Pittsburgh Summit.
Finally, I should like to comment on an issue that was raised in many of your speeches. While I agree with other items on the G20 agenda, which many of you have mentioned, I want to refer to just one: the issue of tax havens and non-cooperative jurisdictions.
It is true that the G20 meeting in London failed to find solutions to all the problems posed by tax havens. It would be very difficult to find all the solutions in one day to a problem that has been around for many years. However, it is also absolutely true that, since the London Summit in April, many more problems have been solved over these six months than were or could have been solved over many years before the London Summit. On this particular point, agreement has been reached on the exchange of information needed to prevent tax avoidance and to prevent economic and financial activities being hidden from the public authorities by utilising the protection of tax havens. It is therefore true that not everything has been solved in these six months. However, in these six months, we have achieved a great deal on an issue which is very important in terms of preventing those financial activities, which are hidden from the regulatory and supervisory authorities, from once again creating distortions in the system. This is also extraordinarily important in terms of the message that we are sending to our citizens about the distribution of responsibility and the efforts needed to tackle this crisis."@en1
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