Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-05-17-Speech-3-058"
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"en.20000517.4.3-058"2
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"Mr President, the European Parliament report on Greece’s adoption of the single currency on 1 January 2001 is remarkable, more by virtue of the political will it expresses to enlarge the euro zone than by its concern for technical exactitude. It is, however, true that Greece has made considerable efforts in order to meet the Maastricht criteria and has achieved good progress, except in a few areas, such as public debt, but on that subject there are some countries within the euro zone that are doing no better.
These minor failings, which would have had little impact if the euro had been strong, are now liable, against the background of the euro’s depreciation, where the slightest ambiguity serves to detract from the image of the single currency, to have a much more negative effect, for psychological reasons. Nonetheless, the European institutions did not feel that they should postpone Greece’s accession so as not to give the impression that they had anything to fear and, from that point of view, the position seems perfectly logical, albeit somewhat risky.
The Union for a Europe of Nations Group almost agrees with their conclusions, but as a result of a very different logical argument. Our initial impulse, obviously, would be to refrain from participating in a debate which a good number of us think is nothing to do with us. But, on the other hand, we think that extending the euro zone may, in the end, provide the stimulus for beneficial reforms. The fact is, the more the euro zone is extended, the harder it will be for the single currency to represent nations which are very different, and the more it will be recognised that it would be much simpler to make the system more flexible by having the euro develop into simply a common currency, overlapping with the national currencies with a degree of flexibility but not replacing them. This solution, of progress towards a shared currency, would probably attract the support of the countries within the European Union which, until now, have remained outside the euro zone, creating a shared point of reference for everyone, and putting an end to the current schism, which is disastrous for the credibility of Europe as a whole."@en1
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