Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-03-24-Speech-3-025"
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"en.20100324.12.3-025"2
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"Mr President, we are, in these first few months of 2010, witnessing an extraordinarily strong dynamic in the European Union, in the midst of the most serious economic crisis we have known for eighty years. At the same time, we are implementing a new treaty, the Treaty of Lisbon, getting new institutions off the ground, and carrying out a very broad reordering of the regulation of our economic systems.
The Heads of State or Government will largely be dealing with those matters. It is also possible – depending on what happens right now, while the European institutions as a whole are sorting out how to cope with the crisis relating to the so-called Greek case – that they will deal with the issue of the financial situation in Greece and the refinancing of the country’s public debt. That issue will also arise there, no doubt, because it forms part of a political commitment adopted by the European Union on 11 February at Heads of State or Government level. This was a political commitment to support the financial stability of the euro area, in the sense that if it is necessary to adopt specific measures to maintain that financial stability, such measures will be adopted.
That is, at any event, the principle that will be very much in mind at this weekend’s meeting of the European Council.
This is happening in a sometimes disorderly fashion, responding to big challenges as we go; currently, for example, the situation of the Greek financial system. However, Europe is meeting this situation by creating new economic policy tools in all areas.
Sometimes, therefore, one cannot see the wood for the trees, but an entirely new way of tackling the extremely complex economy of the 21st century is being created and it is being done through a European approach.
It was done in this way when responding to the very serious crisis and there was an immediate reaction in terms of injecting public money into Europe’s economies, which led to large deficits.
It was done in this way by undertaking – and we are here in Parliament to approve it – a complete reform of the supervision of the financial system.
It is being done in this way, by coordinating economic policies. The Commission has indicated that it will submit a proposal to this effect, for the coordination of economic policies, essentially within the euro area. Furthermore, we are also, specifically, experiencing very determined and clear action by the European Union to support financial stability in the euro area. This political commitment was adopted on 11 February in order to consolidate and sustain the financial stability of the euro area.
There is another initiative that is undoubtedly part of that set: the commitment to a new strategy for growth and the creation of high quality jobs. This is the main topic of work for the European Council this weekend; a strategy which was articulated and expanded upon by the European Commission in the document of 3 March and which will essentially be studied by the Heads of State or Government in the spring Council, basically from the viewpoint of the so-called ‘strategic objectives’. These are the strategic objectives that the European Commission stated in its document, such as the issues of employment, investment in research and development, climate change and energy, leaving school early, education in general and poverty. In addition, the European Council will also tackle the issue of governance, which we consider one of the inadequacies of the so-called Lisbon Strategy. The Council wants this governance to revolve around its own political leadership and the action of the Commission in supervising the Member States’ fulfilment of the commitments they have adopted. This will be, of course, with the close collaboration and monitoring of everything by Parliament and, of course, the Union’s institutions as a whole.
That will basically be the aim of the European Council’s meetings this weekend, including the equally important area of the fight against climate change, in which the EU continues to be a leader. The European Union retains its world leadership in the fight against climate change; it must do so, it must continue holding onto this leadership. There is, moreover, a quantified commitment to the so-called ‘fast start’. Let us hope, therefore, that the European Council will quantify and reaffirm that commitment to help developing countries combat climate change over these next few years as well. A commitment by developed countries generally to collaborate with those that are still not developed so that we all arrive at the very important Cancún conference in the best possible condition. At this conference, the European Union must – I repeat – hold on to the leadership it has now, without which the Copenhagen Accords, which we feel are inadequate, would surely not have been reached.
The Member States have unanimously reaffirmed their full agreement with these objectives and that they want to move unequivocally towards legally binding commitments at the Cancún conference in Mexico."@en1
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