Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-06-13-Speech-3-013-000"
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"en.20120613.6.3-013-000"2
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"Mr President, Mr Wammen, Mr Barroso, ladies and gentlemen, it is time that the Member States tackled the real problems and had the courage to answer the real questions. It is time for the European Council to finally adopt tough measures on 28 and 29 June, rather than settle for fall-back mechanisms that are immediately overtaken by events.
If you go for the first option, Parliament will be happy to work with you to find lasting solutions to the problems of our fellow citizens. However, if the Council stubbornly refuses to agree on the main issues, we will not see the light at the end of the tunnel in the short term.
Those are my requests to the Council. I would also like to request that the President of Parliament be finally given the opportunity to debate with the Heads of State or Government all the subjects that will affect the future of Europeans. The President of the Commission has his place in the Council, as does the President of the Central Bank. Is the democratically elected President not as worthy as the President of the Central Bank?
The person who represents 500 million Europeans, presides over the only institution elected by universal suffrage, and who leads the institution that legislates with the Council is asked to leave the Chamber after he has given his presentation. What democracy, what transparency can we demonstrate to the outside world? European integration cannot be achieved without the democratic legitimacy embodied by the European Parliament.
Mr Barroso, I will end by saying – and I know that you repeat things time and again, as we do, in this Chamber – that we need to continue to make recommendations. We need to continue to table new proposals on social and fiscal union and we must not be afraid to publicise them. Go ahead – Parliament is with you. We are the driving force behind the proposals, and the Council needs us in the difficult crisis situation in which it finds itself. It needs to find solutions and we need to put them on the table, even more so than we have done so far. You can count on us.
I would also like you to go further and publish, every three months, an up-to-date table of the economic and social measures on the internal market taken by each of our governments, both on the right and on the left. Europeans need to know which Member States are making an effort to get their public finances back in shape and to promote growth and jobs and are not just talking about doing so.
All these proposals need to be continued. We are going to haul Europe out of the crisis. Ladies and gentlemen, what the PPE Group wants is honesty with regard to our fellow citizens and, above all, a great deal of political courage.
For the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats), these real questions in actual fact boil down to one: are we ready to make the necessary political leap to make the European Union and the euro area work? This is a question that could not be asked two years ago.
Are we both clear-headed and politically courageous enough to defend and organise shared political sovereignty, or are we going to allow our laws, our policies, our societal choices to be dictated by the financial markets and banks, as we have been doing for two years now, lurching from one crisis Council to the next?
We must assume our responsibilities once and for all. What we want is a European Union with a social and fiscal model, and we need to show this. This is a difficult time and, in times of crisis, we move forwards and not backwards.
We have to face reality and stop deluding ourselves. The reality is that no country in Europe can tackle global challenges, whether economic, social, demographic, military or political, single-handedly. We see this every day. Each Member State says, ‘I do not need Europe, I do not need Europe,’ and, the next day, it asks for help.
Members of the Council, the reality is that, over the last 60 years, we have achieved peace and prosperity and that this has been possible thanks to a method, the Community method. I believe deeply in this method, just as I am convinced that Europe is the solution and not the problem.
So, ladies and gentlemen, on 28 and 29 June, notwithstanding such important issues as economic governance, the credibility of the euro, and financial perspectives, the PPE Group will, first and foremost, call on the Member States to make a choice, a major choice that will determine the rest: do you want to ensure a future for Europeans and to focus on what is really important, which is to ensure strong political integration through the Community method?
Or do you prefer to keep on pretending that you have economic sovereignty only to find, the day after each summit, the day after each meeting of Finance Ministers, that the decisions taken are inadequate and untimely and that we are heading for disaster? Do you prefer, as you did on 7 June in relation to Schengen, to withdraw to your borders and fall back on your intergovernmental arrangements?"@en1
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