Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-24-Speech-3-076"
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".
Mr President, honourable Members, earlier on we said that the analysis made by the President of the Commission differed from mine, but this is the first time, Mr Schulz, that I have been accused of pretending everything is fine when it is not. It is the very first time in my career.
Today, some people are talking not just about Ireland but also about Portugal. Allow me to give you the figures. Portugal’s public deficit was 9.3% in 2009; in 2010 it will be 7.3% and in 2011 it will be 4.6%. The interest rate on the Portuguese public debt is 3.6% on average. That is extremely low. Portugal is not experiencing a property crisis or a property bubble. Its financial sector is not too high for the country. Its banks are well capitalised. Let us not target the wrong enemy. Some people are saying that the crisis situation is contagious, but they do not have the economic justification or a rational basis to do so. I insist on this point: let us not target the wrong enemy.
I can assure those who have called for greater cooperation between institutions that the Presidencies are doing all they can to work together. The report issued by the Task Force has been adopted by its members, including the European Commission representative, Commissioner Rehn. We are also working side by side in other areas, such as the permanent crisis mechanism.
I hope we will see the same spirit of cooperation when we draw up the 2011 budget. I regret the fact that we have not managed to reach an agreement.
On the subject of cooperation, however, allow me to make a comment. You are all Members of the European Parliament and belong to particular political groups. I should like to mention that there are sometimes major differences between what I hear in the European Council, from prime ministers and different individuals, and what I hear in this Chamber from the same members of the same political group. I am not making a criticism. One does not have to be in complete agreement with one’s political party. During my career, I have often seen conflicts within my party. However, I do everything within my power to achieve consistency and cooperation between the institutions. I would therefore say that we need to cooperate at all political levels in order to achieve a more consistent position than we have at the moment.
I agree with those who say we have a strict policy in place, but that we cannot emerge from the crisis with that alone. They are right, but we must go through that stage first. If we had been more cautious both in terms of the macro-economy and budget planning, we would not be in this situation today. However, we do need a positive policy for growth and employment. Despite all the negative aspects to consider, I am pleased that economic growth in Europe has returned after eleven months of recession. I have said as much on other occasions in Parliament: the crisis of the 1930s, which also started with a financial crisis, was never fully resolved.
We re-established positive growth eleven months after the financial crisis erupted. This year, the average growth figure will stand at around 1.5%. In some countries – not those facing the problems already mentioned – growth will stand at around 2%, and in other countries it will be as high as 3% or 3.5%. On average, employment levels within the EU will rise once again from 2011. Of course, the unemployment rate is too high, but I am very pleased that, compared with six months ago, our growth predictions are much better than anticipated and that growth is more stable than we thought. This is not only growth based on restocking, recovery programmes and exports. It is also growth that is also fed by internal demand.
Finally, I would like to say that despite all the problems we are indeed experiencing in some countries, I am convinced that, once again, we will overcome the crisis we are facing today.
I can assure you that I do not underestimate the crisis in any way, and that we are experiencing difficult times. Unless some of my comments are taken out of context, I am usually a very prudent man, and I believe that far too many statements, inflammatory or otherwise, are made in the European context – not in Parliament. We must now calm things down, and not keep mentioning the seriousness of the crisis. We already know about that. It is time to take action.
Some of you have said that we should learn lessons. There is a French proverb that says ‘our acts follow us’. Honourable Members, when I took office there was the Stability and Growth Pact, which was made a little more flexible a few years ago and was not applied. When I took office, I inherited the Treaty of Lisbon, which provides for certain procedures relating to, among others, sanctions and the decision to be taken when a country is subject to the excessive deficit procedure. The Council makes these decisions, according to the Treaty of Lisbon. When I took office, there was no crisis mechanism, and we had to rectify that.
We are therefore going to strengthen the Stability and Growth Pact and introduce a system of macro-economic supervision for the first time. I can assure you that if we had had that mechanism a few years ago, the problems some countries have experienced would never have surfaced. We would have discovered the property bubbles. We would have discovered the problems of competitiveness in certain countries. So we are going to introduce it now. It is new and innovative. It fully takes into account the lessons learned from the crisis.
As far as the Treaty of Lisbon is concerned, we intend to change it in order to give it a legal basis in some constitutional courts – a legal basis for a permanent crisis mechanism. That is the only reason. I hope we are not going to run the risk of starting another major debate on the institutions, for that, in my opinion, would lead us nowhere in the current climate, and would divert our attention even further away from resolving the crisis.
We had no crisis mechanism before. When we faced the problem of Greece, we had to invent a mechanism, because there was none. When we brought in another measure, the EUR 750 billion rescue package, we had to be creative in our interpretation of the Treaty of Lisbon so as to be able to apply it.
We are therefore learning lessons from the crisis, and I repeat, our acts follow us. We had a stability pact that was weak and had not been applied; we had nothing in the area of macro-economic supervision; and there was no crisis mechanism.
Have Member States assumed their responsibilities? Many of them have. They are implementing reforms that have often gone against the major tides of public opinion. They have taken steps that have often shown great courage, not only in those countries with problems but also in others. We are assuming our responsibilities.
Honourable Members, let us not always target the wrong enemy. I often have the impression that we focus too much on governments and Member States’ own parliaments. Let us not get our enemy wrong."@en1
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