Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-22-Speech-3-172-000"
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"en.20110622.16.3-172-000"2
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".
President, honourable Members, let me first thank the Chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs Sharon Bowles, rapporteurs Corien Wortmann-Kool, Elisa Ferreira, Vicky Ford, Sylvie Goulard, Diogo Feio and Carl Haglund, as well as the shadow rapporteurs who all played a major part in the negotiations. The Chair, the rapporteurs and the shadow rapporteurs have all represented this House with great distinction.
On euro securities, in the context of this package I will only confirm what I said at the trilogue on 15 June. The Commission intends to present a report to Parliament and the Council on the setting up of a system of common issuance of European sovereign bonds, or euro securities, under joint and several liability, in line with Article 8a(5) of the regulation on the enforcement of budgetary surveillance in the euro area and within six months of the entry into force of that Regulation. These euro securities would aim to strengthen fiscal discipline and increase stability through markets as well as, by taking advantage of the increase in liquidity, ensuring that the Member States enjoying the highest credit standards would not suffer from higher interest rates. The report will, if appropriate, be accompanied by legislative proposals.
In other words, in our view such a report on euro securities goes hand in glove with and only makes sense with the prospective reinforcement of economic governance in line with this package now under deliberation.
Let me say a few words on the next steps. I am worried. Should the package not be agreed, neither the Council nor Parliament should think that they can successfully shift the responsibility onto the other. That will not work. People watching the decision-making from outside are not interested in the smallest detail. If we fail – and I say we and I really mean us all – they will simply say that ‘Europe’ has failed. Europe would fail and people’s trust in the capacity of Europe to address their real problems would suffer a huge blow.
Moreover, neither institution should imagine even for a moment that – whether for tactical or substantive reasons – they might get a better deal in the second reading. The Presidency has very skilfully extracted compromises from the Council that would most likely not appear on the table again if a first reading agreement could not be achieved.
Actually only one issue remains open: the scope of reverse qualified majority voting. I believe you are all aware of the efforts we have made. The Commission supports reverse qualified majority voting. So does the ECB and a number of Member States, but not all of them and not in all places. The Council has already agreed to reverse qualified majority voting in five out of six decisions where it is legally possible. On the remaining one, there is a disagreement between Parliament and the Council. I believe a solution can and must be found. Therefore I appeal to you to seek a constructive solution on the remaining point in the next few days and I appeal to the Council too, to respond with a constructive approach on their part.
I can reassure you that the Commission will work until the last minute, the last second, to find a satisfactory solution. Reinforced economic governance in Europe is simply too important to fail on this final remaining issue.
Let us recall that the Council is about to sign the treaty on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) which focuses on correction. But the ESM will only complement the new framework for reinforced economic surveillance, which focuses on prevention and is of primary essence because it will substantially reduce the probability of crises such as we have experienced emerging in the future.
Let me conclude with a simple message. If there is no agreement this week and no vote by the latest in July, it will be a very bad deal for Europe and for Europe’s citizens. And it would only result in frustration, bitterness and a worse outcome for everyone if we must come back to these files in September.
You have agreed on 99.9% of the substance. I now ask both sides to go the last few centimetres to reach an agreement with the other. It is of paramount importance, since this package really is the cornerstone of our comprehensive response to the crisis that is still ongoing. It is absolutely crucial for the credibility of the European Union to conclude the package before the summer break, and then move on and put it into effective use.
I also highly appreciate the outstanding role played by State Secretary András Kármán, who represented the Hungarian Presidency with such skill and determination. And I dare to say that I am very proud of my team in the Commission and I will thank them once we have reached the destination, with your help of course.
I warmly welcome the texts that you have finalised. In the course of the trilogues, Parliament’s negotiators have improved the Commission’s proposals in many important respects. And you have gained a good many important improvements from the Council.
The Commission supports the texts which you are about to vote on, and we can welcome and agree on all of your amendments. As we know, the Council agrees with almost all of them. But it did so with some exceptions which present quite a challenge – let me come back to that in a moment.
There is no time to set out all the gains made by Parliament in these negotiations: my staff have made me a summary list of no less than 50 major improvements won by you.
For instance, you have codified the European Semester, you have set up a structured economic dialogue, providing for a prominent role for Parliament throughout the European Semester. You have achieved the opportunity for detailed discussion of country-specific situations at every key decision-making stage of the policy cycle, including confirmation of Parliament’s right to initiate dialogue with individual Member States. In all parts of the legislation you have won a better information flow to Parliament and more transparency. You have got a commitment from the Commission to do a study on euro securities within six months of the entry into force of this legislation. This will be accompanied by a Commission declaration, the text of which you have seen, setting out the scope for that report. I will come back to that as well. The Commission will also commit itself in this declaration to reviewing the intergovernmental nature of the European Stabilisation Mechanism by mid-2014.
You have got reverse qualified majority voting in a number of important cases – to improve the automaticity of decision-making – as the rule in the corrective arm of the Pact, where 24 Member States out of 27 now find themselves unfortunately. You have also won an equal role for Parliament in determining the scoreboard for detecting possible macroeconomic imbalances, and you have inserted firm guarantees on social dialogue, respect for national traditions on collective agreements, wage formation, and the role of social partners, which we fully share.
There are going to be tough fines for statistical fraud and guarantees of independence for national statistical authorities. You have introduced earlier sanctions in the excessive imbalances procedure. I could go on and on.
In your first legislative encounter with Ecofin as a co-legislator in economic policy, you achieved almost all of your most important objectives. This is a very good result for Parliament and for Europe."@en1
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