Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-03-13-Speech-2-021-000"
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"en.20120313.6.2-021-000"2
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"Mr President, Mr Van Rompuy, ladies and gentlemen, I do not know whether I should congratulate you, Mr Van Rompuy, or whether we should congratulate ourselves: we shall see. I hope that your second term of office will not be like the first.
I would like to say various things.
Firstly, to come back to Schengen, I should like a very simple thing to be said. Germany and France are isolated in the Council. At the Council, all the countries have refused to renationalise the management of Schengen. That is what this is about: saying that reform is necessary. Mr Audy, if you wish, for Greece, if one were to stop provoking the Turks with totally idiotic resolutions in the national parliaments, it might be possible to conclude an agreement with them for them to secure the borders. We hit out at them, and then we say to them: ‘be nice to us’. They are just as clever or stupid as we are! Let us put our own house in order, and perhaps we will be able to secure the border with Greece by having better relations with Turkey.
This is not nonsense, it is the truth, my dear friend, and you are going to hear some more of it.
I would like to turn now to the crisis. I believe that this approach to the golden rule, where we adopt a triple financial, social and environmental golden rule, makes sense. I am not opposed to a financial golden rule, but if we do not adopt a social and an environmental golden rule alongside it, we will not be doing right by future generations. That is what I wanted to say about the golden rule.
Starting from there, what we need to do now is to produce a recovery plan, but not on a shoestring. As you know, we have staked EUR 4 600 billion in order to save the banks. This was made up of guarantees, investments and various ways of saving the financial system. The Marshall Plan was 5% of US GDP; 5% of European GDP is EUR 800 billion, not EUR 4 000 billion. This is a recovery plan for the European economy, including the economies of Greece, Portugal, Spain, etc. Let us be equal to the challenge. We will not overcome the crisis merely through austerity policies that strangle the people; we will only do so if we give the people prospects for the future. We have had to pull out all the stops to save the financial system. Are we not capable of pulling out all the stops to save European citizens? Anyway, that seems to me to go without saying. What I am calling for is that we should make use of a significant European budget – Mr Daul is right – using own resources and the European Investment Bank, in order to implement a lasting and sustainable economic recovery with the green economy.
With regard to tax evasion, I should like to say that we must be honest. As long as we continue to have fiscal competition in Europe, we will not succeed. Allow me to cite an example: Facebook and Apple are in Ireland, and Google and Amazon are in Luxembourg, while they make their money in France, Germany, etc. These companies pay taxes in Luxembourg or in Ireland because there is unfair competition on company taxation. As long as we are unable to regulate this, let us not say that we are combating tax evasion. If you want to combat tax evasion, it is very simple. All you have to say is: ‘all banks who do business in Europe, whether they be European, Swiss or foreign, must declare what European residents deposit in their banks, all the banks, otherwise they will be prohibited from working in the European market’. That is what the Americans did with UBS in the case of US money in Switzerland and you have seen how the Swiss banks reacted, saying: ‘here are the declarations’. Do the same thing! Compel the banks to make declarations. Of course, that constitutes a temporary removal of banking secrecy. If you tackle this, then you can tackle tax evasion, because you know where it is and where it comes from. For as long as we fail to do this, we will not be equal to the challenge.
I should now like to finish with two issues. Regarding Bosnia and Belgrade, I am not in agreement. As long as we fail to give Bosnia a chance, those who were responsible for the war will be the major beneficiaries, and those who were the victims of the war – Bosnia – will not even have a makeshift role within Europe. I find this morally unjustifiable. I am not opposed to the agreement with Serbia but I would say we are not doing enough for Bosnia. While we fail to tackle Dayton, we will not make progress.
Finally, on the subject of Syria, Mr Verhofstadt is right. Today, we are imposing a humanitarian corridor, but we are not saying that we are doing anything. I agree that Syria is isolated, and there are all the options: arming the army, seeing if we should act to impose humanitarian corridors, etc. Mr Van Rompuy, you speak of a humanitarian corridor, but if Mr Assad does not want one, what will you do? Will you impose it or not? This is something we must consider. The Syrian people are being massacred every day, and our discussions are not keeping pace with the massacre. That is our problem. I am not saying that I have the solution, but at the moment, we are not able to be equal to the task."@en1
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