Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-02-15-Speech-3-418-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20120215.21.3-418-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, since I took up more time than I had envisaged in my opening speech – and I apologise – I will be very concise in these closing words, which I wish to devote first and foremost to thanking you again, Mr President, and those members of the House who expressed their support and esteem for my country, for the government it is my honour to lead, and for me personally.
I wish to address Ms Harms, picking up on her speech, in more general terms. Many significant comments have been made on the Greek question: we have all thought long and hard about Greece. As one of the elders among you, I would, however, like to call upon you to look at things from an historical perspective. Certainly we may feel that the tough approach being handed out to Greece today may be excessive, and it probably is, but I would suggest that we do not forget that Greek politics for many years – and I say it in all due modesty and as a simple external observer – was a perfect catalogue of the worst practices of politics in our countries. And when we say – and this topic is discussed briefly in the article I mentioned before – that democracy is now working in Europe at the national level, but unfortunately not yet at European level, that can be refuted on two scores. Firstly, here we are in the home of democracy at European level. Secondly, do we really want to use as examples of a well-functioning democracy what we saw for many years in Greece and other countries, based on corruption, nepotism, lack of competition, illicit public procurement, tax evasion and whatever else?
From this point of view, therefore – even though we might regard as excessive the rigour imposed by the euro with its budgetary discipline, and even though I criticise it myself – we should take note that the culture of stability invented in Germany, which we have all absorbed with the euro and the Treaty of Maastricht, has had the advantage of making it necessary to carry out politics in individual countries with greater sobriety, because in the past, it was all too easy for politicians to acquiesce to any demand, raising government spending and piling debt on the shoulders of future generations and thereby ruining their countries.
So I would therefore like to look at Europe as a pivot, whose pendulum has now perhaps swung too far in the direction of rigour, but as an Italian, I think the presence of that pendulum is positive, because a country like Italy, many years ago, in order to join the euro, benefited from having to bring in better discipline.
These words, these feelings and these actions are of great comfort to us and encourage us to try to govern better in Italy, as we seek at the same time to get Italy to make an increasing contribution to a strong European policy, in particular, one geared towards growth. My heartfelt thanks also go to Commissioner Šefčovič for his comments to me.
I believe that I will answer only two points while, due to the complexity of the philosophical and systemic points inherent in his speech, I intend to examine the transcription of the words addressed to me by Mr Speroni and for which I thank him very much.
I want to give two answers, one very short and the other brief.
The very short one is about the observation made by Mr Gollnisch ...
… to whom I would like to say that I am unable to trumpet my democratic legitimacy from being elected and I assure you that, unlike you, sir, and others, I did not stand to obtain such legitimacy. I was asked to do this job, a job which I find fascinating. It is not that I would have taken it on of my own accord. Now, I am sure that, had you been asked to act at a difficult moment as the Head of Government in your country, you would certainly have refused, saying that you would only do so if you had democratic legitimacy.
Mr President, I thank you for the welcome which you have given me."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
"(The speaker addresses the Member in question in French)"1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples