Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-24-Speech-3-012"
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"en.20101124.4.3-012"2
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"Mr President, as I listened to the President of the European Council, I heard a different tone to that of the President of the Commission. The President of the Council has given us a report, and Mr Van Rompuy, if I allow myself to succumb to its spell then I can really only come to the conclusion that everything is hunky dory. If I listen to Mr Barroso, however, I get more of an impression that – and I quote – ‘some of the more recent positioning has not contributed to coherence’. That is what the President of the Commission said about the Council, which you are telling us is in complete harmony.
What Mrs Merkel is doing constitutes a stress test for the euro. I will tell you what is going on: the involvement of the private sector is a good thing, and it is right for it to be involved. In the European Parliament – and I stand by this – we decided, with broad consensus, on a way of involving the private sector, namely the introduction of a Europe-wide financial transaction tax.
This was briefly discussed at the G8 summit, and then they said: ‘no, we do not want a financial transaction tax’. We then said ‘OK, we will forget about it then’. In the afternoon over coffee, the financial transaction tax was buried. If there was a way of involving the private sector that would actually have an effect on this private sector then this would be it. People are now saying that the United Kingdom does not want it. Does the United Kingdom actually decide everything in Europe? What if we started with a financial transaction tax in the euro area first, for example, and said that we would collect dues from the private financial sector within the euro area in this way.
I will just repeat what he said so that the interpreter can say it: ‘one people, one empire, one leader’. That was what this man said.
I am almost finished. It is just that when this Member walks through the Chamber and shouts ‘one people, one empire, one leader’, I have only one thing to say: the people who said that in Germany are people whose way of thinking is one that I am fighting to combat, but I believe that this gentleman’s views are closer to this way of thinking than mine are.
No, the reality in Europe is somewhat different. The reality in Europe is that the EU is divided into three parts: the German-French decision makers, the rest of the euro area and the remainder that does not belong to the euro area, with a special position for the United Kingdom. That is the reality in Europe.
The United Kingdom’s special position also needs to be looked at in particular. The German-French Merkel-Sarkozy decision-making partnership has done a deal with Mr Cameron. Everyone knows that and it also needs to be said openly. The deal goes like this: ‘I need a revision of the treaty for the Stability Pact’. ‘OK’, says Mr Cameron, ‘that is not easy for me because I have backbenchers in the House of Commons who do not want this, but then I will get a different budget’. Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy then say ‘good, let us do that’.
That is the reality in Europe. Not only does that have nothing to do with Community spirit, it is an approach that will destroy the coherence of the European Union, and in the long term it will also destroy the European Union. I fear that there are some people who want that to happen. They applaud this enthusiastically. These Members are sitting over there.
If we do not want these people to call the shots on this continent in future, we must take Europe in a different direction.
I will attempt to continue. Mr Langen is always very excitable. The reform of the Stability Pact in the EU is being made dependent on the agreement of a country that does not even belong to the euro area. Mrs Merkel is consenting to a revision of the treaty at a time when no one in this House can predict what will happen in Ireland. Moreover, I do not know whether the revision of the EU Treaty will be accepted in Ireland as smoothly as it would seem from your report on the European Council.
Mrs Merkel says that the private sector must be included. I would just like to put a question to you, Mr Rehn, regarding the private sector in Ireland. How was it actually possible for the Irish banks to pass the stress tests? Could you explain that to us?"@en1
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