Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-21-Speech-1-032-000"
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"en.20120521.14.1-032-000"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, Mr Busuttil, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, I warmly welcome this own-initiative report by Mr Busuttil. It is further proof of how important it is that Parliament sets the agenda on important matters. Thank you, then, Mr Busuttil, for this very balanced report.
The subject is more relevant than ever, for alongside the things that we imagined would be the engine of European integration when the internal market was established 20 years ago, we can also see that there are imbalances in the internal market. The imbalances where the balance of payments is concerned are also one reason why the euro area has run into such difficulty. The single European market as a whole is also at risk of losing its legitimacy, its role as an engine, if we do not devote particular attention to what has happened now, on its 20th anniversary.
The internal market scoreboard could be a useful instrument for indicating where things are going wrong at a very early stage, as a kind of early warning system. It would be a significant first step towards economic policy that is at last coordinated. That is why I also welcome the European Commission’s plans to publish this internal market scoreboard annually. We need to square the circle here. On the one hand, the economies that have nursed their labour markets back to health by making appropriate reforms – those that are more prompt with transposition – must naturally not be punished for their achievement. On the other hand, however, even the best in class will be affected if its neighbour gets into excessive debt in order to buy its products.
As an initial step, it would be sufficient for the EU’s internal market regulations to finally be transposed in a more timely manner. In reality, what we need here are realistic transposition and implementation targets – as this report also underlines. Then there is the varying speed of transposition. In May 2011, the Member States took, on average, 5.5 months longer than the transposition deadline to transpose EU directives; today, the figure is nearly 8 months. This time period needs to be reduced, for the sake of equal opportunities alone. In short, the Member States must meet their obligations better and must demonstrate greater commitment to and make greater efforts towards implementing European legal provisions.
At the same time, it can be seen that 20 years of the internal market have resulted in a drastic increase in the differences between the competitiveness of the national economies in the European Union. There has been a radical shift in the balance of payments between the strongest economies and what are now the weakest economies, in favour of the strongest. The low interest rate policy conducted since the launch of the euro has reinforced this trend, acting rather like an accelerant.
We Europeans have trusted in the healing powers of the internal market, while ignoring the fact that competitiveness has not necessarily improved across the board as a result of this internal market policy. Commissioner Barnier, we need to take action to counter this. The scoreboard provides one way of doing so. The 20th anniversary of the single European market also gives us an opportunity to look into drawing up a plan for more equal balances of payments at national level, and possibly even at regional level in a further step, alongside the completion of the internal market. Only then will we achieve overall economic equilibrium in even the marginal regions of Europe, and particularly in the southern parts of the euro area.
Europe’s sovereign debt crisis shows that the surpluses in the north and the deficits in the south will have a blocking effect on each other unless we can resolve this problem in the medium term. I would therefore urge Europe’s economists to give us new theories that reconcile the internal market with reciprocal balance. The internal market scoreboard could provide a decisive starting point for this, but it must not be allowed to become a paper tiger. Let us use the internal market week as an opportunity to think about these things. Let us also use the 20th anniversary of the internal market as a chance to make all of us in Europe – not just the strong countries of the north, but everyone as a whole – fit for the future."@en1
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