Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-02-09-Speech-2-239"
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"Madam President, thank you very much to all the Members of this House who have spoken during the debate for the references that they have made to the policies, attitudes and proposals of the European Commission, of which both I and my colleague, Olli Rehn, have taken note.
This was not just a statistical correction. In this massive increase in the deficit in Greece, to a large extent there has been an absolute lack of control of budgetary policy. This is not a statistical matter. They are not asking Eurostat to resolve it. This is an issue of management, due to a government that allowed revenue to drop or did nothing when revenue was dropping and allowed expenditure to increase or pushed expenditure up because the elections were approaching. Plainly speaking, that is what happened.
Moreover, in relation to the statistical problems, and in response to Mr Martin – as I think Mr Karas said – at the end of 2004, I proposed to the Council on behalf of the Commission that we strengthen Eurostat’s ability to conduct audits when there were statistical problems that could not be resolved through standard notifications. Eurostat does not compile the data. Eurostat receives notifications from the Member States. In order to see beyond the authority giving the notification, Eurostat needs powers that it does not have. The Commission asked for those powers and the Council did not grant them. I have told the Council that we are going to ask it for those powers again. My colleague Olli Rehn, who from tomorrow will be responsible, with no more transitions to be made, for economic and monetary affairs, has a proposal prepared for adoption by the new Commission at its first formal meeting, once you have kindly given us your approval today.
Following this notification, the Greek Government put forward a budget for 2010, which had not been put forward before the elections, and not only the Commission but also the Eurogroup and Ecofin approved the excessive deficit in the light of the new situation. We did so with recommendations that could not be prepared until we had a programme in front of us, which the Greek Government drew up and sent to us on 15 January. Based on that programme, as I said before, we made the recommendations on 3 February.
It is true that if we had a magic wand we could have acted on the very night of the elections. I can tell you, however, that I believe that the Greek Government, the Commission, the Eurogroup and Ecofin acted swiftly. The latter two began debating the situation even before we made the recommendations to them. There is no way that we could act more quickly if our aim is actually to resolve the problems. If all we want to do is make statements, of course we could act.
Thirdly, I fully agree with the need to increase confidence in the euro and in the Economic and Monetary Union. This is everyone’s responsibility: it is the responsibility of the Member States, the Commission, the Council and Parliament.
Incidentally, as an aside, as some of you have referred to statements that I made when presenting the recommendations for the Greek Programme, I ask you, in the interests of confidence, to refer to what I actually said, rather than referring to what others say that I supposedly said. That is all I ask.
Finally, the Council meeting on 11 February, the day after tomorrow, which was mentioned by Mr López Garrido, among others, is a very important meeting. It is a special Council meeting because there are not many matters on the table. It is a meeting at which there will be two contributions, from the President of the Commission and the President of the European Council, with an open political debate, which, at the present time, is extremely important, with tension in the financial markets that we have not experienced in the euro area since the single currency was created and a crisis worse than we have experienced for 80 years. We need to respond to this situation, not only with an exit strategy, but with a medium-term strategy so that this decade is one of growth and employment.
If you will allow me a minute to say my last words as Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, I will tell you what I would like to hear at the end of this European Council meeting. I would like to hear a clear demand to each and every one of the Member States, in this case starting with Greece, to meet their obligations, and to implement the measures that they have committed to as members of economic and monetary union and the recommendations given to them by the economic and monetary union authorities. We need to demand that all Member States fulfil and apply the rules that we have all made.
Secondly, I would like a political commitment to be made at the highest level for more coordination, better coordination and the strengthening of the Economic and Monetary Union as an economic zone, not only as a central bank for the economic and monetary zone, not only as a body that issues recommendations.
Both within and outside our borders, economic and monetary union, the euro area, needs to speak clearly, firmly and credibly, because this increases the confidence of our citizens and of the other citizens of the European Union and of the world in our currency and in our project, which is not only an economic project, but goes much further.
Allow me to say a few things, which I will say in four points. There have been many speeches and I cannot answer each and every one of them, but I believe that I can essentially respond to all of them using four points.
Finally, I would like the leaders of Europe to say to the Greek authorities, ‘In exchange for your efforts, you have our support.’ The support cannot be free of charge. That would create a climate for future imbalances and future crises. The support needs to be clear, and we have the tools to do this, in exchange for a clear commitment that everyone is assuming their rightful responsibilities.
Firstly, as I have said many times in Parliament over a period of nearly six years as Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, I fully agree with the need to increase coordination within the Economic and Monetary Union and within the European Union. All of the Member States of the Union that are not yet members of the euro area, in other words, of the final phase of the Economic and Monetary Union, are going to be, apart from two Member States that have an opt-out. I do think, however, that in the next few years, we will see them abandoning their opt-outs and wanting to join the Economic and Monetary Union too.
In order to have coordination, we need to deepen and broaden supervision, and the activities of analysis, debate and recommendation based on that analysis and debate, with regard to fiscal policy and other macro-economic and structural policies.
If you recall, this was one of the first conclusions of the report that I presented here on behalf of the Commission in the first half of 2008, before Lehman Brothers, on the first 10 years of the Economic and Monetary Union. Since then, we have debated in the Commission, in the Eurogroup and in the Council, and also here in Parliament, how to improve that supervision, how to extend it, through what is now the heart of supervision and the framework for budgetary discipline, the Stability and Growth Pact, while also broadening it.
I agree with those of you who have said that it is not only about implementing a fiscal and budgetary policy that is in line with our rules, but that there is a need to go further, because there are other imbalances that put growth, employment and the situation of public finances at risk.
I agree with all of you who said that we do not need to call on the International Monetary Fund for all of this. It is true that all of our countries are members of the International Monetary Fund, but we can and must do it ourselves.
If we are coordinated enough, if we have political will, if we use the tools provided by the treaty, if we carry through our declarations of intent and major objectives to their ultimate conclusion, we have more than sufficient capacity and tools to do what we need to do in order to tackle difficult situations such as the one that we are currently facing.
In the case of Greece, I will mention two issues that have been the subject of debate, which I have already discussed in detail. Firstly, Mr Verhofstadt, who is unfortunately no longer here, said that the Commission intervened too late. I do not know how quickly Mr Verhofstadt’s country asked the Commission to take action on budgetary matters, but I would like to remind him that there were elections in Greece in early October. Two weeks after coming to power, the new Greek Government corrected the notification that we had received a few days before the elections, changing the deficit from 6% to 12.7% in three weeks!"@en1
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