Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-25-Speech-2-473-000"
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"en.20111025.28.2-473-000"2
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"Mr President, we have taken note of your report, Mr President. I would like to say that the European Council meeting on Wednesday may have genuinely earned the designation ‘historic’. This term is overused, but it could be that what is being decided tomorrow in Brussels will really be of historic importance, because a decision may be made tomorrow on the question of where Europe is going.
My group will strongly oppose this. I hope that the decision that is made tomorrow is at last the decision that we need. Ultimately, it is no longer really about the content. It is about the Heads of State or Government demonstrating that they really are able to meet the challenge which is facing them.
I have frequently been critical of the fact that the European Union has disintegrated into three parts: the German-French decision makers, the rest of the euro area and the remainder of the European Union, with a special position for the United Kingdom. This approach, this breaking down of Europe into different decision-making structures, is, in itself, one of the greatest risks that we face. It will destroy the community method and will ultimately create a situation in which the individual players, in particular, those in the euro area, will become so dramatically dependent on the domestic political situation in their countries that every person sitting around the table will be focusing only on his or her own national position, instead of basing their actions on community spirit and common goals.
This is what has happened in Slovakia and it is now happening in Germany and in every other Member State, because the European Council and the council of 17 euro area countries are governed by the principle of unanimity. We are ultimately making one of the strongest currencies in the world dependent on the tactical domestic policy games of the Member States. We must put an end to this. Therefore, in future, we need community institutions which have the job of implementing community economic and monetary policy. We do not need any additional invented institutions.
We are on a dangerous path, because we are putting confidence at risk: the confidence of the markets in the sustainability of investments in Europe and the confidence of citizens in the ability of their governments to effectively manage the euro area and the European Union as a whole. This confidence has been put at risk over the last 18 months. The process in the European Council of Heads of State or Government is generally as follows: announced, not implemented, withdrawn, looked at from different perspectives, announced again, not implemented again. Last weekend, we had the meeting between Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy, but only now do we have the breakthrough. Now they have come to an agreement. In other words, they have announced something, but not implemented it.
On Sunday, in the middle of the debate, Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy held a press conference? What did it concern? The subjects that they had not agreed on. Yet it is obvious to everyone what all of this is about. We need to make this quite clear. It is about the size of the haircut, which depends on the extent to which the French banks will find themselves in the front line. They are the ones which are hardest hit and, therefore, the French state knows that when it comes to a haircut, these banks will have to be stabilised in one way or another. You have referred to this. The French state cannot do this from its national budget, because otherwise, it will put its rating at risk. Therefore, it is on the lookout for other forms of finance and aims to make use of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF). There are two models: the German insurance model and the French banking model. They do not agree on this. How would it be if tomorrow, instead of constantly issuing unsettling interim reports, they were to sit down together, negotiate until white smoke could be seen and only then appear in public? They would be doing for the first time what needs to be done: winning back confidence in Europe, the confidence of the citizens and of the investors.
I would like to say something about possible amendments to the Treaty. I have read and heard that the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union is to be amended and that a working group has been set up involving Mr Van Rompuy, who, by the way, has missed a big opportunity here today. If he had come here, the attention of the whole of Europe would have been focused on him. All the Heads of Government are going to their parliaments and Mr Van Rompuy has missed his chance today. Other members of this working group include Mr Barroso and Mr Juncker, the president of the Eurogroup. Where does the European Parliament come in?
I would like to say at least on behalf of my group to those people who want to amend the Treaty that whatever sort of Treaty we have in Europe in future, even if it goes so far as to grant the right of intervention in national budgetary sovereignty, it will not happen without the European Parliament. We cannot allow the euro crisis to be used to continue the creeping deparliamentarisation of Europe."@en1
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