Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-12-13-Speech-2-023-000"
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"en.20111213.5.2-023-000"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is nice that we can still find something to laugh about, even in the midst of the crisis. While I watched events unfolding last Friday at the summit in Brussels – in the European Parliament’s traditional role that we are now supposed to continue playing in future – I had the impression that, in comparison with the way in which the crisis has developed, this summit has nothing whatsoever to do with the crisis as it appears to us at the moment. Greece, whose problems have not been resolved after years of debate, and now several older European countries are threatened by state bankruptcy. In the opinion of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the European Union is on the brink of or has perhaps even started to enter a recession. My experience of this summit is that it is a summit of total denial.
I am not just referring to Mr Cameron. Like everyone else, I thought it was good that he was pushed into a corner. We can no longer put up with the British strategy of self-interest and protecting the City, which Mr Schulz has rightly described as one of the roots of all the problems that we now have to deal with. However, while Mr Cameron stood in the corner which he had chosen for himself, the question remained: what now? This is where the denial continued. I saw a denial of reality and at its heart lay, in my opinion, a narrow-minded and irresponsible analysis of the crisis by Ms Merkel.
She maintains that sovereign debt is the problem and that it is the sole and central problem which has caused this crisis. Therefore, her only response is to say that austerity policies are the means by which we will emerge from the crisis. I cannot bear this any more, because the situation we are in today is the result of this one-sided austerity mentality which the Germans have imposed on the entire European Union.
What we expected was a sign of resilient European solidarity. Contrary to the advice of the economic experts in Germany, not a single word has been said about a debt redemption fund. The banking licence for the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) was not a topic for discussion. That is not acceptable, because we must put ourselves in the position where we can give a central guarantee for European government bonds, a subject which the Poles talked about during their Council Presidency until they were blue in the face. The banking licence for the EFSF would be the simple and obvious way of achieving this. However, it was refused, as were measures to combat the recession. Whenever I hear your old story, Mr Barroso, about sustainable development in the European Union, and I have been hearing it since the time of the Lisbon strategy, I ask myself where and how it will finally come about. It was not discussed at this summit.
Ms Merkel was defeated on the subject of creditor participation. We can have a dispute about this, but it no longer exists, despite the fact that Ms Merkel fought for it so strongly. If there is no creditor participation, the question which I believe is still outstanding is the entire issue of justice. We must not jointly take on the burdens imposed by the crisis while those people who benefited from our debts before and during the crisis and whose assets are actually our debts emerge from the crisis completely unscathed.
One important topic for discussion is how we can involve the wealthy people in future if there is no creditor participation.
The summit failed to meet its objectives. It was a summit which involved a denial of reality and of democracy. We were not given any answers to the serious questions of the crisis, but we did get an announcement which ran contrary to European democracy. I find it unbearable that during the crisis, we are being fobbed off with piecemeal measures like this intergovernmental stability treaty which is being put alongside the European Treaties, whatever that may mean. I am pleased that the chairs of the groups in Parliament decided yesterday to table a resolution in January in which we will explain the responses that can be made to the crisis now without Treaty change. I believe that the economy and solidarity union which I and my group would like to see will not be possible if the Treaty is not changed. However, everything I have mentioned that must be done in response to the crisis is also possible without changing the Treaty."@en1
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