Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-10-21-Speech-1-039"
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"en.20021021.4.1-039"2
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"Mr President, we requested this debate because we wished to state that it is time to suspend the Stability and Growth Pact in order to conduct a review of its irrational and incongruous criteria for nominal convergence, which do not take account of the problems and difficulties facing the Member States or their differing levels of development, which are a factor in making their economic problems worse and in hindering growth and the implementation of Community strategies on employment and on combating poverty. This became clear at the first round table on social exclusion held by the Presidency and the Commission last week in the Danish city of Aarhus, and in which I took part in my capacity as rapporteur for the European Parliament.
Now, following the statements made by Commissioner Lamy and the Commission President, Romano Prodi, I can say that we agree with these statements. This Pact is indeed stupid, as are all decisions that are rigid. This Pact is a clumsy tool for economic governance and must be replaced with something more intelligent, since the 3% rule is positively medieval.
All of these reasons prove that there is no sense in keeping the Stability and Growth Pact. It makes no sense that Commissioner Solbes Mira, on the one hand, confirms that the targets for the stability programmes will not be met in 2002 – and this could not be clearer in Germany, France and Italy – but on the other, where Portugal is concerned, opens an excessive-deficit procedure and applauds the implementation of measures for antisocial policies that create more unemployment and more poverty, precisely in the country that has the worst economic and social situation and the lowest level of development in the entire European Union. What is clear is that the Pact’s main function is to serve as a pretext, as a political cover-up for the most damaging, disastrous and revanchist government policies seen in Portugal since the revolution of 25 April in 1974.
I therefore ask: is Commissioner Solbes Mira going to tender his resignation? Or is he going to opt for proposing the suspension of the Pact in order to hold a broad debate on the EU’s economic and social guidelines? And is he going to cancel the excessive-deficit procedure that he imposed on Portugal? Or is President Prodi going to do so in order to address the aims of sustainable economic development, of more jobs with rights and of greater social inclusion? I await your replies."@en1
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