Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-06-12-Speech-2-033-000"
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"en.20120612.5.2-033-000"2
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"Mr President, let me first of all thank the rapporteurs, Mr Gauzès and Ms Ferreira, for their very important work and the Presidency and Minister Margrethe Vestager for their excellent and very effective cooperation on these important files.
This means that, as colegislator, you have a choice: either to move forward in a timely way or to delay and create a legal grey area. If the treaty enters into force before this ‘two-pack’, we will be confronted with very difficult legal challenges.
What concerns me most is the political signal that such a scenario would send: no legal acrobatics would enable us to hide the fact that we had failed to live up to our political responsibilities, because Member States would be subject to intergovernmental treaty obligations which had not been translated into EU secondary legislation as planned. Frankly, this would be very bad for the credibility of both the EU Treaty and the community method.
We have to acknowledge that, in this respect, the Council has moved quickly. It agreed its mandate to negotiate on these texts within weeks of the signature of the treaty in February. As a former Member of this House, I understand and deeply respect the principles of democratic scrutiny, which means that this House cannot always be as agile as the Council. But I think – and I say this with respect – that after almost seven months for discussion, this should now be the moment to move forward from discussion to negotiation and then to decision.
The Council’s negotiating mandate will surely provide us with challenges in the negotiations. I have studied Mr Gauzès’s and Ms Ferreira’s reports. It is already clear that the mandate that you will give to the Economic Affairs Committee will also provide us with some challenges. However, my team and I are ready to roll up our sleeves, get down to serious work with this House and the Council, and get this legislation enacted so that we can move forward. It is in our joint interest not to be institutionally overtaken by yet another intergovernmental agreement.
I also want to thank the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs for a very substantive and, may I say, constructive economic dialogue yesterday evening in which we discussed the European Semester as well as our strategy for sustainable growth and job creation, and also discussed issues like the recent decision of the euro area to provide a credit line for the restructuring of the Spanish banking sector. We will continue this discussion tomorrow, both in the morning and afternoon, so today we will focus on the ‘two-pack’, which is a very important discussion and decision indeed.
Let me say a few words about the context of this debate. At the summit later this month – as President Barroso will explain in more detail tomorrow – the Heads of State or Government will discuss the next phase of deepening the economic union. They will discuss possibilities such as a growth compact, a financial union and a fiscal union.
So we are, yet again, witnessing a potentially defining moment for Europe’s deeper integration. And, once again, this Commission and this Parliament have a special and joint responsibility – a unique responsibility – to prove that the community method can be and will be at the centre of the next chapter in the making of Europe.
I have little doubt that the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance will be ratified by at least 12 euro area Member States and will thus enter into force. The legislation which is the subject of our debate today has a profound significance in relation to that treaty. That is why it is so important.
The first draft regulation, which is the subject of Mr Gauzès’s report, aims at providing more robust and coherent ways of dealing with vulnerable Member States and Member States under a programme, including enhanced economic and budgetary surveillance. I fully agree with Mr Gauzès that prevention is always much better than correction and this regulation was needed in the past two and a half years, even before that.
The second draft regulation, which is dealt with in Ms Ferreira’s report, aims at establishing a common timeline and common rules to allow for real active prior or
monitoring and assessment of the national budgets of euro area Member States. This regulation was needed during the past 12 years because, once again, prevention is always better than correction, as we have learned the hard way.
These proposals, submitted to you on 23 November by the Commission, decisively informed and shaped the subsequent discussions that led to the new Fiscal Compact Treaty. Moreover, the authors of the new treaty explicitly required that certain provisions of the treaty should be achieved through the EU’s normal secondary legislation. They welcomed these specific legislative proposals and clearly saw them as an essential supplement to the treaty itself.
And, of course, the authors of the treaty set out the goal that all provisions of the treaty should be incorporated into the legal framework of the EU by 2018 at the latest. So, the adoption of this legislation is a vital first step in ensuring that the articulation between the Fiscal Compact Treaty and the EU Treaties is done correctly and will set a positive precedent for the future."@en1
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