Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-25-Speech-2-013-000"
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"en.20111025.5.2-013-000"2
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"Madam President, I would like to thank Ms Bowles and Ms Berès very much for their questions. I think this is the first time we could be tempted – at least initially – to evaluate the operation of the European Semester and draw at least a few possible conclusions at this stage as to its implementation in practice.
A second element which is becoming increasingly important is greater coordination and better targeting of EU resources for the implementation of EU priorities. National reform programmes which specify how a particular country would like to spend at least the majority of funding received from the EU are linked into the whole process. Through coordination of this document with others relating to the management of the public finances of a particular Member State, as well as with EU priorities, and by adapting them all further down the line, we give a clear signal that the EU has chosen these priorities and is ready to fund them and that we would also like – in the view of the EU – that Member State to subordinate its expenditure priorities in its national budget to these targets. Then we will have achieved the target designated for all EU Member States. This message is now very clear. I think that in this area – in the opinion of the Council – the European Semester has, for the time being, fulfilled its role very well.
How will this finally affect national budgets? This we do not know, as it depends on decisions made in national parliaments. However, the instruments are in place, the possibilities are there, and they should be used. However, it may happen that our final assessment for this year will continue to raise many questions and indications that something could have been done better. We must, however, remember that the European Semester was introduced at a rather bad time. We have a huge debt crisis in the EU and we have quite significant problems with the banking sector. In fact, the economic situation of the EU is very volatile. What we saw as priorities in April or May – as targets which could be achieved within that set of economic realities, the realities of the spring of this year – may be insufficient or impossible to achieve at the present moment. As a result, in a few weeks’ time, it will be easy to criticise the fact that despite the European Semester, Member States have not achieved certain things. However, the dynamics of economic change in the EU and the development of the crisis are so great that it really is difficult at the moment to foresee all the right measures which should be taken one year into the future. We should remember that all these instruments – the European Semester, the ‘six-pack’ – are there to help us bring stability to the macro-economic situation in the EU and give direction to what we do. However, they are not instruments which will solve the crisis in two or three weeks. These instruments were never planned as such, so we cannot expect implementation of the European Semester to improve the economic situation in the EU immediately. However, we believe that as a result of the European Semester, macro-economic dialogue will improve markedly in the EU, and this is its fundamental aim.
At the moment, the Council’s assessment of how the process is progressing is positive. We have learned some lessons – more from the technical point of view – about how to improve the process and give Member States more opportunity to implement the process well, and about how to participate fully and achieve better dialogue with the Commission concerning the recommendations made. Questions have been asked here as to where the European Parliament is in all this and whether this is a transparent process. The answer is yes, it is. All the documents are available on the Internet and are in the public domain. Everyone can take part in the process. In accordance with the new procedures, the European Parliament can also invite representatives of the European Council and the Council to participate in discussions, taking into account the macro-economic situation. That is why I think that everything is moving in the right direction.
I would like to stress that we can, in fact, only provide an initial assessment, as the Semester itself and the whole process have not yet ended. This process, or at least its annual function, will only end when the national parliaments have approved their national budgets. This will be our first opportunity actually to assess whether the whole procedure, which began in January 2011, has had any positive results, whether there is any added value in national budgets compared to the situation previously, whether there has been greater synergy between the economic policies of the Member States as we had all hoped, and whether there has been a greater concentration of resources in accordance with the main priorities of the European Union. This is something which as yet we do not know. This process is still ongoing, so only in a few months’ time will we be able to assess how effective this European Semester has been. However, based on our initial experience, it seems that this process is the right one, one that is required, and one which has been taken very seriously both by the Member States and the national parliaments, as well as by all European Union institutions involved in the process.
I would briefly like to remind you how this process works. It begins, at the moment at least, in January when the European Commission presents its annual analysis of economic growth. Based on this, the Economic and Financial Affairs Council adopts certain guidelines for Member States in February. Then the Member States have until April to prepare national reform programmes, stability and growth pacts or convergence programmes, depending on whether they are members of the euro area. Then there follows a period when the European Commission prepares recommendations with the participation of the Member States, and responds to comments submitted by the Member States. There follows a very busy period in June, when both the relevant sector councils, their groups and preparatory bodies, as well as the European Council, finally approve the guidelines, which are ultimately – as was the case here – approved by the Economic and Financial Affairs Council on 12 July. At this time, the deadlines are very tight. We now have some conclusions and some suggestions for the future on how to streamline the process.
However, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that we should be assessing the European Semester from two different points of view, the first aspect being the technical functioning of the European Semester which I have just discussed, when certain documents are approved and there is a timetable to be followed. The second aspect is the influence of the European Semester on macro-economic dialogue in the European Union and the engagement of Member States in that dialogue, its influence on the macro-economic situation and on public finances. This is actually the main element of the European Semester, the linking of macro-economic priorities with the possibilities and priorities of public finances.
With regard to the technical aspect, after the initial process of preparing recommendations for Member States, which took several months, it is clear that this is a very technical process which requires a great deal of work on documentation all through the process. During the first six months, over 600 documents are drafted. Please remember that the majority of these documents must then be translated into all the national languages within a set time. Logistically, this is therefore a very complicated process. Then, in June, we have a very busy diary and very short deadlines for all the appropriate bodies to give their opinions and approve the relevant documents. There is not much room for manoeuvre, as the Council’s diary is so full that not much can be changed.
In this regard, the question arises as to how this could be improved. One suggestion which, at the moment, is becoming increasingly clear – and I hope this will be finally agreed – is to start the whole process a little earlier. There is a proposal for the European Commission to present its annual report in December, which would give the Member States and EU bodies several weeks to prepare for the beginning of the dialogue. In this case, in April we would already be much further along the line of discussing and agreeing the Member States’ responses to the priorities indicated in the Commission’s annual report, and our preparations regarding reform programme documents and stability and growth pacts would be more advanced and better discussed. This would probably help to alleviate the pressure at the end of May and in June – the pressure to ensure that all the EU bodies are working effectively and can approve all the documents efficiently.
I would like to point out how determined the Member States have been to implement the process effectively this year. As I have said, there are many documents – over 600. There are very short deadlines for comments. As a result, Member States accepted certain departures from the current rules. In cases where there was a large volume of documents, the process was expedited even if not all the language versions were available. This is very difficult for many Member States to accept, but they did agree to it, thus confirming their commitment to the process. They were prepared to work with the English or French versions available at the time in order to expedite the work, so that the dialogue could continue and all the recommendations could be approved in the time available.
I would now like to move on to the second element, which is much more important to us: the assessment of the influence of the whole European Semester procedure on macro-economic dialogue in the European Union. We must remember that the European Semester is only one of several factors which have emerged in recent months in the European Union as new instruments for greater economic cooperation between Member States and for improving the implementation of EU priorities in this area. We have the European Semester and the ‘six-pack’, which has only just been adopted, and we also have normal implementation of the Stability and Growth Pact. All these elements form a whole and also bring greater transparency to the procedure as well as a much stronger dialogue between Member States and much greater transparency in relation to the actual economic situation in each Member State. They also enable greater pressure to be exerted mutually on Member States, so that the discussion on macro-economic priorities can proceed in the right direction and so that everyone is fully aware of the direction the EU is going in and what challenges are being faced by the Member States.
In my opinion, the ‘six-pack’ has, in practice, fostered greater involvement of the national parliaments in the process of incorporating EU macro-economic developmental priorities into national policies through the strongest instrument existing in each country – the national budget. The national parliaments are informed, during the initial stage of discussion, which priorities each Member State intends to put forward in its national reform programme and approximately which budgetary approach will be adopted by each Member State, as the information in both documents submitted to the European Commission is given to them. Secondly, they know the results of the European Council’s recommendations. They know what the EU has recommended in this area. Later, the national parliaments have the final say on the form the national budget should take, so they have a very good instrument which monitors the way in which national governments incorporate EU priority recommendations into national measures. It is important that the European Semester should shape the direction taken by EU measures, providing one specific direction that Member States should follow. If the priority turns out to be one of maintaining or increasing growth in some Member States or implementation of the Europe 2020 agenda, this clearly shows and points to where the EU should proceed, at the same time providing flexibility for individual Member States, as we are not all starting from the same place, but we do all have to go in the same direction. This is very important. There is not a single gold standard with which everyone should comply, irrespective of whether they need it or not. We hold individual discussions regarding Member States and their economic situation, we give them a clear signal in which direction they should proceed, but we also give them a great deal of freedom in choosing the methods they need to attain their objective."@en1
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