Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-03-09-Speech-3-078-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20110309.7.3-078-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, the euro is a major success story. It is one of the most stable currencies in the world and has outperformed the dollar on the markets. We can see that the economic figures coming out of the United States are far worse than those for Europe. Yet, given that we do not have uniform conditions, we still see that individual parts of the euro area, individual Member States, are having difficulties and we have to respond to that.
It is the case that a failure of the euro could be extraordinarily costly for all of us in this globalised system, and I want to spell out that my country – which sometimes depicts itself as if it had to make major sacrifices – is the main beneficiary or joint main beneficiary of the euro. We are thus not performing self-sacrifice here. Instead, we are also acting in the common interest of all the States – large and small, rich and poor – and we need to appear to be unified.
We must also make clear that we need to present a unified front in order to be credible. We cannot allow a credit ratings agency such as Moody’s to downgrade a county by three levels overnight. When that happens, we get in trouble once again thanks to pressure from the United States. Here, too, we need to have the ability to present ourselves more strongly as unified. I am therefore pleased that we are attempting, in three ways, to create the conditions to make us credible. These are: tightening up the Stability and Growth pact, with greater options for intervention; bolstering the role of the Commission; and an early warning system, the European semester, as part of which it is to be observed at an early stage whether, and to what extent, budgetary discipline can and is to be followed through by the Member States. All of this reinforces our abilities so that we do not find ourselves in a situation like the present one again, and this will enable us to achieve credibility on a durable basis.
Secondly, we cannot overcome this crisis with budgetary discipline alone. We will only emerge from this debt trap through a combination of budgetary discipline and growth. For that reason, efforts to promote growth and competitiveness make sense. I am pleased that the proposals that have been made in this area are slowly being modified so that they are not based on a purely intergovernmental approach but increasingly also integrated into the Community method where the European Union has the relevant competences. The result of this is that many of the concerns that we in this House rightly had about a particular proposal are slowly being resolved. Yet these two factors – competitiveness and budgetary discipline – go hand in hand.
My third point relates to the revision of the Treaty that we have paved the way for and on which the European Council can only decide on 24 March if we have given our opinion by that point. An amendment of Article 136(3) of the Treaty has been proposed. Mr Gualtieri and I, as well as the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, are of the opinion that it would be better to amend Article 136(1), rewording it in order to better meet our demands.
We also know, however, that this approach could possibly be harder to implement as, for reasons of politics and time, the simplified procedure should be our aim and no referendums should be held. If, for the reasons stated, this is not possible, we should at least ensure that the Council undertakes obligations that make clear that the intergovernmental approach in this case does not mean that permanent new structures are created in the European Union but that it will continue, as in the past, to only be used as a method where ground-breaking is required. These conditions must thus be adhered to in order to create the conditions for there to be the possibility of link-up in the event of transfer to the Community method and in order to carry out an improvement of this kind in such a way that we can act in a communal way in the long term.
That means that we also see the weakness of the intergovernmental approach. An intergovernmental approach means no, or hardly any, parliamentary legitimacy and results in a complete inability to act in many areas due to the requirement for unanimity. That means that the Community solution – the ‘Monnet method’ – is also always more legitimate and gives rise to a greater ability to act. We should not forget that in this debate.
The European Parliament wants to create the conditions so that, in the measures taken in the various fields, we revert to the approach of using Community institutions. In this regard, it is not especially the European Parliament that is at issue as, when it comes to an intergovernmental approach, we have, at most, a right to be consulted. What is at issue is a greater involvement on the part of the Commission, which does the groundwork, performs an evaluation and tables proposals. The Commission should also propose a regulation governing such matters in order to incorporate them into Community law.
I hope that the European Council is ready – and I welcome Mr Corbett, as representative of the European Council – to create the necessary conditions in the talks with us by 24 March and to give Parliament the assurance that this approach can be used in such a way that the necessary steps can be designed in a sensible way and so that we can bear our responsibility together."@en1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples