Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-30-Speech-3-164-000"
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"en.20111130.16.3-164-000"2
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"Mr President, I have listened to this debate with very great interest. It seems to me that such debates are necessary, not least to increase understanding of the whole process and of the European semester.
I mean, what is it for? The European semester is not an instrument intended to provide a stopgap solution to the problems of the present crisis. It is an instrument conceived as an element of long-term economic cooperation in the European Union, based on strengthening the way EU priorities are ordered and action is coordinated by all Member States, and on strengthening the communication of these priorities, defined at EU level, to national parliaments, which means to the institutions which ultimately make most of the decisions that influence the actual implementation of EU priorities. It seems to me that we have to remember this.
In my opinion, the whole process at the moment is indeed based on EU institutions. Opinions have been voiced here in the Chamber that there are fears we are moving away from the Community method, that elements are beginning to be introduced which are not provided for by the Treaty, that we are starting to see the dictate of particular Member States. However, please note that the whole process is based from the beginning on drafts prepared by the European Commission, on discussion which takes place in the Council and at the level of the European Council, and on documents which are adopted by EU institutions. So in my opinion the Community method is preserved, and most important of all in the whole process – many Member States have also drawn attention to this – this means the final decision is being left to sovereign national parliaments. We must remember this and uphold this. Taking this sovereignty away from national parliaments in the area of budgetary decisions is something which is not accepted by practically any Member State. This option does not exist.
In discussing the European semester and its assessment after the first year of its operation as well as further changes to its operation which are being put in place, we should concentrate on how to increase and strengthen that communication with the parliaments of Europe. How can we involve the national parliaments to a greater degree in the discussion of priorities which are helping to improve the effectiveness of the entire European Union? However, this all depends on greater effectiveness in the performance of individual Member States. We already know from experience that it is not possible to build increased competitiveness for the European Union based on only some of the Member States. We all have to be going in the same direction.
We need to find a suitable tempo for particular Member States. Not all of them are able to bear the same burden at the same time. However, what the European Commission is doing in preparing the Annual Growth Survey every year is in fact a means of showing the direction in which the Union should be developing in the near future. Later this translates into particular recommendations for Member States and checks if these recommendations find a degree of reflection in national reform programmes and later in national budgets. This is exactly the element which until now has been missing – signals were being sent from Brussels and the European institutions to the capitals and in fact that was the end of the matter. We did not have an element of reciprocity while still in the process of deciding about how the recommendations are to be implemented. So being able to do this gives huge added value to the whole process, and this is something on which we should concentrate.
I can see very many interesting thoughts in the Berès report about this very subject of how the European Parliament and other EU institutions could be involved in the process of bringing national parliaments in on the whole decision-making process and showing them that they too bear direct responsibility for delivering EU priorities which serve our common good: increasing and stabilising economic growth in the Member States and improving competitiveness throughout the European Union."@en1
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