Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-06-23-Speech-3-028"
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"en.20100623.9.3-028"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I do not have a major problem with certain types of criticism. I have a problem with the general approach, and I will explain what I mean.
In any case, we must change our approach. It is our collective responsibility to do so. In order for the euro to be a stable currency, economic development and economic policy must be more convergent and we must put a stop to the differences both in terms of development and in terms of politics. This is what we are working on.
There was talk of sanctions. Personally, I continue to believe that there are many methods other than sanctions. Fear of sanctions is not the main thing that makes governments act. However, since we are talking about sanctions, in the task force we are going to work towards real sanctions, not just corrective sanctions for those who go beyond the 3% deficit rate, but also preventive sanctions, for those who are below the 3% rate, but who are not respecting their medium-term plans and whose debt is too high and is not developing in the right direction or at a sufficient rate.
We are therefore going to introduce, in so far as the treaty will allow us, sanctions that go beyond the Stability and Growth Pact that we have at the moment. We are going to introduce them preventively and reinforce them correctively. We cannot invent sanctions that do not have any basis in the treaty. I cannot do anything about that. We should have thought of that at the time.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are also going to introduce, for the first time because it does not exist, mechanisms to correct the imbalances, in particular, among balances of payments, and divergences in competitiveness. It is the first time that we will work on this. We have not done anything until now. We are going to be innovative with this task force thanks to the ideas and initiatives or proposals that the Commission will put to us a few weeks from now in the crucial area of competitiveness.
Therefore, I am really challenging this inverted Euroscepticism, which means that when there are results, plans, programmes and intentions, we demolish them in advance. We are making progress in the governance of all the institutions, step by step, in a gradual way, but we will get there; of that I am absolutely certain.
As for financial supervision, of course this is being discussed at the European Council. We are also discussing it with the finance ministers. We can also talk about it here in the European Parliament. It is not a sin. There is no ulterior motive, it is not about lecturing anyone, but we must talk about it.
I will avoid making caricatures. We could say: ‘These are the Council’s proposals, they consist solely of coordination’, and brush everything aside. That is a caricature, and I will have nothing to do with it. All I would say is that, in this crucial area – there are others, too, in the financial world – we, the Council – it is not even the European Council – and the European Parliament have to be able to work together to ensure that on 1 January – and that is the deadline – the new institutions can get off the ground. We very much need them.
Even in the area of finance, Europe is in the lead. Do you really believe there will be applause at the G20 if the EU Member States, President Barroso and I propose a bank tax? Do you really believe there will be applause? Here, too, we are innovators, pioneers. Do you really believe that when we talk of the tax on financial transactions, we will receive applause? Here, too, we will be pioneers.
Therefore, in a good few areas – environmental, financial and others – we are taking courageous initiatives and we will also defend them at global level. As we have also said within this Chamber, if there is no agreement at global level on some issues, such as a bank levy, we will act at European level. Moreover, some Member States are already taking initiatives, and I am proud and pleased that at the time when I was Prime Minister, my country was practically the first and only one in Europe to take the initiative of introducing a tax on banking institutions.
I have listened to you, I have listened to you carefully, but I would say that my approach is a positive one. Some of you are urging us to be more positive at the same time as criticising us. I do not have a problem with that, but I would like, in any case, to underline what we have succeeded in doing under extremely difficult circumstances, in the first three or four months of this year, and we will continue. I am also sure that, a few months from now, even if they do not applaud us, some of those who are critical now will nevertheless agree that we are right.
When I was here in February, when we discussed the results of the first informal European Council, there were significant doubts over whether we would succeed in creating a financial support plan for Greece and whether that country would be capable of taking the measures necessary to correct what went wrong in the past. However, a few weeks later, we adopted a EUR 110 billion plan, and Greece corrected its GDP by at least 10 percentage points to get its budget back on track. We could not believe it, but that is what happened.
If, a few weeks ago, we had said that we would create a potential rescue plan costing EUR 750 billion, of which EUR 500 billion would come from Europe or the European Union in general, no one would have believed us, but it has been done. Some said: ‘The Mediterranean countries have a different culture, they are unable to really take reform measures, it is a waste of time!’
When I see what is happening in these countries now, in painful circumstances – which no one is happy to see – I say that there is a radical change in culture taking place.
I hear criticism about climate change, although the European Union has the world’s most ambitious programme on the issue. We even gave our 20-20-20 programme a legal basis. Everyone envies us. However, when I hear criticism, I have the feeling that we are not doing anything. That bothers me. I am not saying that we must err on the side of a sort of blind optimism, but what bothers me is that every achievement is seen as too little, too late and redundant.
When I see the results of the last few months, I am also delighted with the positive effects that our action has had. We talk about better governance – of course the euro helped us greatly through the financial crisis! I cannot for a second imagine what the consequences of this financial crisis would be if we did not have this common currency covering 350 million people at our disposal.
I cannot imagine how unstable our situation, in particular, our monetary situation, would be if we had not had the euro. We would have returned to the crisis of the 1930s, with competitive devaluations with this disastrous beggar-my-neighbour policy. We avoided this thanks to the monetary stability of the euro.
Of course there are problems, there are divergences within the euro area, and we must tackle them. I was not here for the first 10 years of our century, I was elsewhere, but who in this Chamber and outside, in all kinds of institutions, even in all kinds of think tanks, pointed to the very serious balance of payment and competitiveness problems? Not many. Now we are putting the past on trial."@en1
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