Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-12-15-Speech-3-010"
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"en.20101215.5.3-010"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the European Council, which opens this week, is taking place in a particular context: speculative attacks against the euro, the revival of euroscepticism and the beginning of reflections on Europe’s finances, while this Parliament is preparing to vote on the 2011 budget.
I ask the European Council to give us its agreement and, if necessary, to vote, so that those who deny us this opportunity to participate in the debate assume their responsibilities. It is not, for us, about power but about contributing to a crucial debate on the future of European construction. We must lance the boil, we must take the right decisions, the necessary decisions to ensure that the European budget increasingly becomes an investment budget.
If our Member States, mindful of budgetary constraints, can invest less in education, training, research and innovation, let us do so at European level by combining our resources and, therefore, by achieving economies of scale.
For the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats), the debate on Europe’s finances must not be allowed to descend into a quarrel between Member States who want their money back. On the contrary, the debate should be about reconciling our fellow citizens with Europe by exposing them to the added value that concerted and visionary European action can represent.
I am currently visiting the capital cities and I can tell you that the debate is taking hold. Do not miss this opportunity. Because we are coming up to Christmas and the New Year and this Presidency will soon come to an end, I should like to thank the Belgian Presidency for its very good collaboration with Parliament, as well as José Manuel Barroso, who had the courage to undertake to present a document on capital requirements before the end of June. I believe that we must continue, together, in this direction and that the Heads of State or Government must follow us. We have to show them the way.
These are, of course, closely linked. The euro crisis and the solidarity measures have an impact on the purchasing power of the European people, who are wondering if all these efforts are worthwhile, if they are leading to anything, whence the euroscepticism even in countries hitherto traditionally pro-European. This is a phenomenon hijacked by populist and extremist political factions, which feed on fear and the temptation to withdraw into oneself and which, when they are in government, do not have a miracle cure.
I will start with the euro, which we must protect and strengthen while, at the same time, asking ourselves some fundamental questions.
My first question is this: has Europe ever had a currency as stable as the euro? I say this to those nostalgic for national currencies: a step back would have catastrophic consequences for Europe.
My second question is: who is behind the attacks to which the euro has been subjected for months? Who is standing to gain from the crime, if I may call it that? I am not a conspiracy theorist but, in my conversations with political leaders and financial analysts, the paths are converging on the source of our problems. When will we learn? I think we can talk directly to our friends.
My third question is this: why is the euro still trading above USD 1.30? This is seriously hampering our exports and everyone is saying that the euro has had it. Why are our countries the only ones to practise a strict policy of orthodoxy while our competitors profit from their weak currencies to boost their economies? This is what our citizens are asking us. These are questions I have been asked in the last two weeks in meetings with elected politicians.
Ladies and gentlemen, what we need is a message of confidence that we will overcome the crisis, measures to encourage a return to growth and concrete measures like those taken recently by the Barroso Commission to relaunch the internal market or to make the financial markets more ethical. What we need, and the euro crisis proved this, is convergence in our social and fiscal policies. That takes courage. President-in-Office of the Council, President of the Commission, go further and faster and we will solve quite a few problems.
We are going to need a lot of courage in the years to come if we want to strengthen our countries in the arena of global competition and if we want to use taxpayers’ money in the most effective way possible. This effort to streamline expenditure must be made at all levels: local, regional, national and European. The political and financial priorities of the Union need to be reexamined and the public finances of Europe need to be fundamentally reviewed. We need to ask ourselves the real questions and, depending on the answers we give, adapt our budgetary framework for the period 2014-2020.
It is for this crucial debate that the European Parliament is calling and it is in these substantive discussions that, as the representatives directly elected by 500 million Europeans, we intend to fully participate, even if this displeases certain governments who wish to deny us this right."@en1
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