Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-10-23-Speech-2-128-000"
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"en.20121023.5.2-128-000"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, many of you have said: ‘you need to act, you need to act now’. I have given you an overview of everything that we have done over the last two or three years, with which you are very familiar, and some of you have even said: ‘you have done a lot; now you need to act and implement your decisions’. We thus do not need to create new instruments, as some of you reiterated, before the instruments we already have are implemented. At the same time, we are told: ‘you need to act now’.
If things are moving somewhat slowly, that is one of the reasons for it. We have done many things and we are in the process of doing things that, in relation to the past, are quite revolutionary, when we talk about certain new institutions that we are going to set up.
Have we reached the end? No. That is why we are going to work with December in mind.
Ladies and gentlemen, the work will be harder than we imagine, because now, after everything we have done – the six-pack, and let us hope that the two-pack will be implemented quickly, too – with the Treaty on Stability and the Stability and Growth Pact, with everything we have done on the financial assistance mechanisms, with everything we have done in all of these areas, now we are really getting to the core of sovereignty and the core of solidarity.
The next stage will thus be a qualitative leap. It will also be a gradual process and I can assure you that the debate will not be straightforward here in this House, nor in the European Council, nor in other institutions. Indeed, the further we go, the harder it becomes to make further progress without touching on certain taboos relating to the concept of sovereignty and the concept of solidarity. I would warn you then that between October and December the work will be very difficult and we will have to take decisions that affect a number of taboos.
There has been talk of a fifth building block, but the social dimension must form an integral part of every single policy. That is what we did with the Europe 2020 strategy. Mr Barroso and I fought to ensure that this fifth goal of combating poverty was approved. It was not easy; most of the Member States were totally opposed to it. However, we eventually incorporated it in the Europe 2020 strategy.
Indeed, what is the Compact for Growth and Jobs but an element of the social dimension? What is more social than trying to create jobs in extremely difficult circumstances? The social dimension can be seen everywhere.
The four building blocks that I have proposed are building blocks that are traditional in every economic and monetary union. Moreover, in the European Council, no Head of State or Government, of any ilk or any political leaning, has called them into question. Therefore, we will also work on this social dimension, as I have just said, within the framework of these four building blocks.
The social policy is most important at Member State level. When the Member States take decisions on fiscal consolidation – and I was a finance minister for a very long time – they have to evaluate every measure in terms of its social impact. What is needed is a policy where the strongest shoulders bear the heaviest load. That is a general rule; but when it comes to implementing it and making it a reality, it is much more difficult.
The social dimension is everywhere, both in the Member States and in the policies adopted at European level. Some people say: ‘we need to act now on growth’. Ladies and gentlemen, the monetary policy – and I do not want to pass judgment – is not a restrictive policy, when we see that the interest rates are, in practice, negative interest rates and that the Central Bank is providing liquidity to the tune of EUR 1 000 billion by the end of the year; EUR 1 000 billion! The monetary policy is by no means a restrictive policy.
As far as the budgetary policy is concerned, are we once again going to move to deficit spending? No! Where possible, however, we are going to make the path a little easier. We have done it for Spain and for Portugal, and we may do it for other countries, too.
What we have done – and I often say this – was inconceivable a year or two years ago. In fact, when it comes to the economic and monetary union, I must say – and you will also have seen this in Mrs Thyssen’s excellent report – that we have already made a great deal of progress on the economic union, on the budgetary union and even on the banking union. We have to intensify our efforts, but we have already made a good start.
In fact, if we do not continue with these fiscal consolidation efforts, the markets will, unfortunately, punish these countries immediately. Everything that is gained by making the path a little easier will be lost immediately because of interest rate increases.
Consequently, we do not have not dozens of different ways to generate economic growth in the very short term. The most important thing in the short term is to restore confidence in the euro area. That is more important than anything else.
If you do not mind, I will give you some figures because when you say something positive, you need to be careful because it is not really politically correct. If you look at the difference between the bond rates 10 years ago in most of our countries and the benchmark, which is the German interest rate, if you look at the current situation and compare it to the worst situation in the last 12 months, you will see a decrease: 239 points in Italy, 249 points in Spain, 800 points in Portugal, 900 points in Ireland and 270 points in Belgium. It is therefore not right to say that there have been no results.
I hope that these results last, and the difficult lesson here is, of course, that we have been wrong on several occasions in the past. Well, perhaps I am the only one who has been wrong and some of you are always right. In any case, I can get things wrong. This result is also a clear sign that we can make progress in terms of restoring confidence. If we continue like this, consumers and businesses will also gain in confidence and that will lead to an increase in growth, albeit too low, at the end of 2012 and beginning of 2013, and, indeed, we are starting to see the first signs of this.
Restoring confidence in the future of the euro area is the best way of promoting economic growth in the very short term.
This work will take place here and in the European Council, gradually, step by step. Each time, we are comparing completely new elements to the past. We will continue the work in December. In the meantime, I, like you, hope that in November we will reach an agreement on the multiannual framework. To do that, however, we need one thing, without which an agreement will be impossible: we need a sense of compromise and the political will for this to work. Without that, an agreement will not be possible. For our part, like the other Councils that I have chaired, we will make every effort to reach a compromise.
What we have underestimated, however – and I think we must all take the blame, both in the Member States and in the institutions – is the breadth, the depth and the seriousness of the crisis in some of our countries.
The loss of competitiveness and damage to the sustainability of the debt have been so severe that we need much more time to change course. We cannot think for a second that with a deficit of 15 %, as in one country, or a debt of 160 % we can escape the austerity policy. We cannot think that with deficits of 10 % to 15 % on the current accounts of other countries, we can escape a corrective policy, an amending policy, an austerity policy.
It is not imposed, first and foremost, by the European institutions, it is imposed by the reality of the situation; it is the consequence of maladministration in quite a few countries over a period of time. We did not act soon enough, neither in the Member States, nor collectively at European Union level. Therefore, the so-called austerity policy is not a policy imposed from above; it is a policy that was inevitable, completely inevitable.
We have underestimated the breadth and the seriousness of the crisis. We have done many things over the last two or three years, and that is underestimated, too. We have not finished yet. That is why the four Presidents of the institutions are currently working on more initiatives. One of the key points, and something that we lacked, was sufficient financial integration.
At the start of the financial crisis, we set up three or four institutions, of course, but they focused mainly on coordination. Now we need institutions that are much more European, that are shared more fully by all. In fact, what we are going to do now, with the single supervisory mechanism, is in some ways an unprecedented breakthrough.
Of course, there is serious work to be done. We took that decision in June. The Commission put forward its proposal in September and the October European Council laid down the broad guidelines to enable the ministers to complete the work. You, too, have a responsibility in terms of the implementation of this banking union and we hope – and it is an extremely ambitious timetable – to continue and complete the work by the end of the year.
Once the legislative framework has been determined, there is all of the operational work by the Central Bank to put this single supervisor in place, and that will take a number of months, too. Step by step, but with serious and continuous efforts, we are endeavouring to ensure that this first pillar of the banking union is a truly European pillar. We are told that we need to act. We are acting, but we are acting in a serious fashion, in a fashion that guarantees a certain level of quality."@en1
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