Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-06-23-Speech-3-017"
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"en.20100623.9.3-017"2
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"Mr President, only a week ago, we met in Strasbourg to prepare for the European Council and the G20 summit in Toronto. In front of this House, I said that in the face of the current economic problems, growth is the answer and that this growth has to be smart, sustainable, inclusive, that it must build on fiscal consolidation and structural reforms and that, for this to happen, we need to advance on several fronts at once, namely: by adopting the Europe 2020 strategy; by rapidly concluding the remaining work in financial market regulation and supervision; by coming forward with ambitious measures to enforce our economic governance in Europe; and finally, by entering the G20 meeting in Toronto with a strong and united European Union position.
I am reassured that it has been possible for this approach to be agreed so quickly and, in particular, that we have been able to agree the five headline targets, including on education and fighting poverty. I would like to underline this point because, as you know, it was not evident at the beginning that the Member States should also agree to share their action in terms of what are mainly national competences but which we can put together in a coordinated manner at European level.
With this, the 27 Heads of State and Government have made far-reaching commitments. There should be full comprehension of the fact that leading a European Member State is also leading one part of the European Union and that there should be no contradiction between the important tasks of leadership. The strong and positive political impetus given by this Parliament was extremely helpful in reaching this positive result and I want to thank you once again. I also want to thank the President of Parliament because, in the first part of the work of the European Council, he made it clear with strong European conviction how important it was to reach agreement on those matters.
Let me thank this House for the very substantial input which you are giving to the strategy and which, of course, I hope we will continue to give in the future because, as you know, work is far from complete. We still have to define some of the most important and critical issues regarding the implementation of this strategy.
In fact, we now face the hard work of putting the strategy to work: engaging people at all levels of society and in all parts of the economy. That is why I have welcomed since the beginning the idea that our Member States should also have ownership of the strategy. It could not and should not be seen only as a strategy from Brussels or from Strasbourg. It is important that it is seen as a true strategy that mobilises our society.
The Commission will be coming forward with the flagship initiatives to drive the European dimension of the strategy, and working closely with Member States to develop the national reform programmes. The success of the strategy will also rely heavily on the work of Parliament in your own constituencies, with civil society, with national parliamentary colleagues and with the social partners and with society at large. This will be a real common effort for the coming months and years. This comprehensive economic approach gives us the strongest of platforms for the G20 meeting this week, a clear and united position which can offer the kind of leadership we have been able to offer to the G20 since 2008.
In a joint letter, signed by Herman Van Rompuy and myself, we have highlighted to all our G20 colleagues what are the priorities, what is the programme of the European Union in this meeting. It is the first time the European Union, separately from its Member States, has put together a position regarding our priorities for global action and I think this should be welcome. We have action under way and we have a clear timetable for the future. That is the challenge we can take to partners worldwide. Some of the matters are extremely controversial for some of our colleagues at the G20: for instance, the issue of the bank levy and the financial protection tax. But it was in fact important that, at European level, we have reached a consensus on those matters.
In conclusion, the success of last week’s European Council shows how the European Union is most effective when it concentrates on the priorities. When we face a new challenge, we should resist the temptation to rush to set up new mechanisms, new structures, those kinds of institutional debates that never end. We should rather have confidence in the institutions we have, give them our support, and have confidence in our ability to deliver in just the way we saw last week.
Before concluding, let me congratulate Parliament, the Council and the High Representative for the successful outcome of the negotiations on the External Action Service. The Commission very much welcomes an agreement which clearly makes provision for a service which is part of the Community system and largely follows the proposals that Catherine Ashton has put forward in agreement with the Commission, working alongside the institutions and with the same rules of accountability as any other part of the European public service.
I would like also to tell you that the Commission worked hard with this House and the other institutions to ensure that the European External Action Service will be up and running as soon as possible. This was one of the important innovations of the Lisbon Treaty; we now have to make it a reality. The European Parliament can count on the Commission to defend Community matters as being the best way to deliver the results our citizens expect to see. I believe this European Council did indeed represent very important progress for our European project.
I am glad to say that this was the path taken by the European Council last week and that happened largely on the basis of proposals put forward by the Commission. The European Council reached exceptionally substantive conclusions as we took decisions on strategic orientations which point to the future and offer a vision. The result of the last European Council went beyond simply adding up national approaches. It delivered a true European perspective in three areas in particular: economic governance, financial regulation supervision and, of course, in everything that has to do with our future European strategy for growth and jobs, Europe 2020.
First, economic governance. Though this is still work in progress, the outline of what is needed is now clear. You know that the Commission set out some ideas in its communication of 12 May: a European semester to bring together surveillance of structural and fiscal policies; making the provisions on debt work effectively; more creative use of carrots and sticks to help the Stability and Growth Pact head off future problems and correct them when they arise; ensuring that national budgetary frameworks are set up in the right way to respect treaty obligations; broadening economic surveillance to tackle macro-economic imbalances and comparing those problems in the internal market so as to cover the full range of key issues and not just look at the budgetary dimension.
We now have a European consensus that this is the way forward. The next steps are for the task force chaired by the President of the European Council to take this consensus and translate it into detailed action. With this in mind, the Commission will next week put on the table some ideas for concrete further action and we are already working on the detailed proposals. We will have these on the table by the end of September, because I believe time is also extremely important here.
The second key area where we reached important agreement was financial services. We all know that the job here is not complete and we all know how important it is to have the right regulatory basis for sound responsible financial services, to give confidence that we have the bulwarks in place against future pressures.
Here, of course, the role of Parliament is essential. As I did with Heads of State and Governments last week in the European Council, I would likewise appeal to you to make every effort to ensure that the proposals on financial supervision are adopted before the summer break so that the new arrangements can be in place for next year. The same urgency is there for alternative investment fund managers and capital requirements.
I was delighted that the European Council took up the target in our 2 June communication to have the next phase of financial services proposals agreed by the end of 2011. Issuing these proposals will be a major focus of the Commission’s work this autumn and I am sure that Parliament will be ready to give the speedy attention needed to this very important initiative.
I also believed that it was particularly important for the European Council to agree on a proposal for an effective and coherent approach on the stress testing of banks. Making the results public on a bank-by-bank basis is the right way to use transparency to fuel confidence and prevent the speculation which distorts the markets. We will know exactly what problems still exist and exactly how they will be tackled and, as I said in the European Council, the Commission will stand ready to make whatever examination may be needed under our State aid rules in case interventions are necessary.
Another central strand of our action, and I think probably one of the most important conclusions of this European Council, was, of course, Europe 2020. This has now been accepted by the European Council as a European Union strategy for economic growth for the long term in the sustainable and inclusive way we proposed just a few months ago and to which this House has given substantial input."@en1
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