Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-11-Speech-2-263"

PredicateValue (sorted: default)
rdf:type
dcterms:Date
dcterms:Is Part Of
dcterms:Language
lpv:document identification number
"en.20030311.10.2-263"2
lpv:hasSubsequent
lpv:speaker
lpv:spokenAs
lpv:translated text
"Mr President, what has surprised me most in this debate is that nothing shakes the faith of some Members in the rigidity of the criteria for nominal convergence. Neither the major economic downturn nor the reduction in private investment, nor the steady rise in unemployment and poverty shake their faith in the dogmas of the Stability Pact, whose budgetary and monetary rigidity has not only contributed to worsening the current economic crisis but has also limited the potential for growth in the European Union, with all the consequences this has for the increasingly high levels of inequality, poverty and social exclusion. This situation is particularly serious, however, for the cohesion countries, such as Portugal, whose specific problems require a dynamic public sector and major public investment in order to attain a high level of real convergence, which is being hampered by the blind application of the Stability Pact’s irrational criteria. As we all know, globalisation should make monetary and budgetary policies more flexible towards the specific needs of each country and not lead to the rigid approach currently being applied, which ends up imposing flexibility on salaries and the labour market, giving pride of place to monetary policies and attaching far less importance to social policies. I regret the fact that the Committee on Economic Affairs did not consider the proposal I tabled, urging the Commission and the Council immediately to suspend the Stability Pact and calling for an in-depth revision of the EU’s economic and monetary policy guidelines, particularly in order to take account of issues such as the sustainable economic development of employment and the implementation of all social rights through universal and high-quality public services. It makes no economic sense to set the same budgetary deficit threshold for countries that have different levels of development, and nor is there any economic justification for sacrificing everything in the name of zero deficit. It is therefore clear that the fundamental objective of the pact is political, and this is why we are also unhappy about the proposals that have been put forward here, specifically by the Commission."@en1

Named graphs describing this resource:

1http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/English.ttl.gz
2http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/Events_and_structure.ttl.gz
3http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/rdf/spokenAs.ttl.gz

The resource appears as object in 2 triples

Context graph