Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-02-15-Speech-2-422-000"
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"en.20110215.25.2-422-000"2
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"Mr President, perhaps I could start at nought. It began by being a customs union pure and simple, then it became a political union, but without proper democratic consent, then it became a monetary union – well, sort of, because ten Member States have been sensible enough to stay out – but what we now have is a debt union, and it is a debt union which simply is not working.
Let us look at the interest rate of the German Bund. If monetary union was working, all members of the monetary union, all countries in the eurozone, would be able to borrow money at the same rate – at the same rate as the key indicator, the German Bund – but that is not the case at all. Currently, Portugal pays 4.8% more, Ireland pays 5.9% more, and Greece pays 8.25% more. Exactly as Mr Gualtieri said, it is a crucial moment.
I do not expect the Chairman of the PPE Group, or the Chairman of the S&D Group – who was shaking his head as I spoke – to understand the critical importance of this, but I believe that very soon they will have to. Your problem, and it is mostly
problem, would be better solved by intergovernmental cooperation. Economic governance is a trap and moreover, it has no mandate. Nobody ever mentioned, or even seems to consider, the hard-pressed taxpayers of the nation state as you seek to construct this fragile and vain empire.
Once again, I would remind you that there are 27 Member States: 11 of them are net contributors and 16 of them are recipients, and there is a San Andreas fault between those who contribute and those who do not. I suspect that most of all, the German taxpayer will not put up with this expensive charade for very much longer.
In 1896, William Jennings Bryan, in a great speech about bimetallism, said, ‘You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold’. Now more urgently, I say to you today, and most of all to the President of the Commission, who has the executive power: you shall not crucify the taxpayers of the UK and the rest of Europe on the cross of the single currency."@en1
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