Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-10-20-Speech-3-023"
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"en.20101020.3.3-023"2
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"Mr President, Mr Chastel, Mr Barroso, ladies and gentlemen, Mr Verhofstadt has worn himself out today! However, what he had to say is important, as was Mr Schulz’s speech. I have my own thoughts for you also.
Do you all know the film ‘Jules et Jim’? Well, there is a woman – Mrs Merkel. We know who Jules is – it is Mr Sarkozy. The trouble is who is Jim? Is it Mr Cameron or Mr Barroso? That is the dilemma for the Commission.
I think Parliament and the Commission need to speak to each other frankly now, because the Council’s policy – Mr Verhofstadt is right on this point – and that of its Franco-German board of directors is anti-European Union. Their policy does not reflect the essence of the EU, and our role today is to go beyond the differences that pit us against each other – Mr Daul is right on this point – and to save the European Union and the Community method. To do this, the Commission, this Parliament and all of us need to understand that there will be no winners in this game unless we find a common approach between the Commission and Parliament, Parliament and the Commission.
Mr Barroso, I believe you when you say that you want a tax on financial transactions or on financial activities. This is not the problem; the problem is, how do we actually do this? It is not enough to say ‘I want’. My four-year-old son says ‘I want’. The issue is to work out how we can achieve our goal, and I think the Commission should not be asking for yet another study, as the Environment Council did yesterday to find out if climate degradation is really so bad that we should be stepping up Europe’s CO
reduction – even though it is utterly ridiculous to ask for a new study. No. What would a major study on financial transactions bring to Europe, and what would a tax on those transactions bring? A 0.01% tax on financial transactions would be worth EUR 80 billion. If you set aside EUR 30 billion for a reduction in national contributions and hence a reduction in national budgets, you get an extra 50 billion for the EU budget. EUR 120 billion minus 30 billion makes 90 billion, plus 50 makes 140 billion. So, it is possible to implement the European policies we need to implement post-Lisbon, and the Member States and Europe will be the winners. However, this presupposes that we have a European vision.
Secondly, Mr Barroso, about the deficits: in my opinion, there are deficits and then there are deficits. It is like cholesterol: there is a positive marker and a negative marker. A deficit which invests, and therefore provides a country, or Europe, with prospects, is not a negative thing. If we invest, as we have done before, in the industries of the past which are unproductive – I am talking about coal – we are investing in something that throws money away because it is futile, and therefore we lose out. However, if we invest in the energies of the future and the production of the future, we gain.
Therefore, what we need to do, and I am asking this of the liberals also, is not simply to talk about ‘stability, stability’, but also to differentiate between what we should be doing and what we should no longer be doing; not simply to talk about a ‘deficit’, but to say, ‘this is productive’, or ‘this is not productive’. If we agree, though this will be difficult, if we manage to come to an agreement, we will be in a position to oppose the Council’s constant manipulations.
The problem today is that many governments want to reduce the European policy aspect, whereas our role is to defend and to increase the European policy aspect, because without it, we will not be able to get ourselves out of this.
You see, Mr Barroso, we have a common interest, but we need to take it to its conclusion. It is not Parliament that you should be putting pressure on, but the European Council."@en1
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