Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-04-16-Speech-2-078-000"
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"en.20130416.7.2-078-000"2
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"Mr President, let me first of all join with the sentiments that others have expressed and send my sympathies and condolences to our American friends on the terrible events in Boston yesterday.
Former Commissioner Bolkestein, who I think is from your political family, Mr Verhofstadt, put it very well last week when he said that the euro turned out to be a sleeping pill which made Europe doze off instead of considering and thinking about its competitiveness. Occasionally the Liberals get it right as well, Mr Cohn-Bendit. At least we do not have to hear from the Greens, which is a good thing.
We should be cutting red tape, freeing up labour markets, restructuring our economies, opening up to trade and slimming down the state. That is the solution that we need for Europe. But if we learn anything from Margaret Thatcher’s life, it is that change is possible only if you are willing to fight for it.
Outside this building, there is in my view a real desire for change, for the EU to focus on building a stronger economy, on reforming its policies for the 21st century, and on decentralising power. Twenty-five years on, Margaret Thatcher’s speech still shows the way forward. Let us not keep repeating the same mistakes of the past, and instead let us take Europe in a new direction. Thank you Mr President.
As many in this House will understand, last week was also a very sad one for many Conservatives with the death of Margaret Thatcher, although I am sure she would have been delighted to be quoted by Daniel Kohn-Bendit today. Twenty-five years ago, she set out a new direction for Europe to take in her famous Bruges speech. Looking back on it now, it is striking how relevant it actually is to the events of today. To quote one passage, ‘what we need now is to take decisions on the next steps forward rather than let ourselves be distracted by utopian goals’. Utopia never comes, because we know that we would not like it if it did. And yet even today many focus on the abstract utopian concept of somehow completing the European project. For them, only more Europe is the answer.
Prime Minister, with the help of your government, the Council has set out – in my view – a much more realistic path with a reformed and reduced European budget. Certainly my group would congratulate you on that. I only hope you manage to convince some of your PPE colleagues of this wise course of action, some of whom it seems want to spend even more money than the Socialists sometimes. You are also to be congratulated on your opposition to the crazy policy of a financial transaction tax. Well done.
However, many of the EU’s economic problems stem from the fork in the road that we took back in the Jacques Delors days. We moved, in the EU, away from competition and the open markets that Margaret Thatcher championed, and towards harmonisation and over-regulation. Former Commissioner Verheugen, I think from the Socialist Group, estimated that EU regulation costs European business EUR 600 billion, which is four times the GDP of Finland. And yet we continue to churn out more and more laws, as if our economy could cope and somehow we did not have 26 million unemployed.
It was Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and somehow expecting it to turn out differently. Surely it is about time we tried a different course. Mr President, the euro epitomised that utopian thinking. We rushed into the project without thinking through the economic consequences. Yes, of course the debt crisis was the trigger, but the euro was a fortress built on sand. Jacques Delors himself said that the euro could not exist without the counterpart of a European Government, and the agenda was quite clear even then.
Now true federalists, like our colleague Mr Stubb, no doubt approve of this course of action, and I thought it would be interesting to have a look back to what he said when he was in this Chamber. In 2006, we had the ‘baby Thatcher’ speaking in this Parliament: the Belgian Prime Minister, Mr Verhofstadt. I wonder what happened to him. Mr Stubb at the time effused: ‘There are not too many Federalists out there. There are many closet Federalists, but not any real Federalists any more’. I bet he never repeats that in Finland now. If only some national leaders had perhaps been more honest 15 years ago, we would not be in this situation today.
The final cost of this utopian project will be enormous for many countries, and particularly for yours, Prime Minister, because we all know how unpopular the bailouts are.
Support for the euro, of course, is still strong in Finland. Given your geography, this is understandable. But do the Finnish people really want to see their taxpayers’ money flowing to other parts of the currency union? We know from the remarks of your socialist Finance Minister that she certainly does not.
We need to be honest with people about what membership of the euro is going to cost in the long term, and we need to take the very difficult decisions that are required. Until we do, our attention will never be focused on the real challenge of Europe, which is to maintain our competitiveness in a difficult and challenging world."@en1
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