Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-04-22-Speech-4-030"
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"en.20040422.2.4-030"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, for many months the Group of the Party of European Socialists has been calling for an adaptation of the Stability and Growth Pact to the economic cycles. On different occasions, I have been able to develop, on behalf of my group, specific proposals to reform the Pact in order to turn it into the instrument of a European policy of growth and stability.
Thus, we recommend greater stringency when the economic climate is good. It would be a case of, for example, requiring the Member States to have a balanced budget when growth exceeds, let us say, 3%, even if it allows them greater infrastructural spending flexibility at the time of an economic turnaround. Our objective is the transposition of the British golden rule to European level.
The Christian Social Prime Minister of Luxembourg, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker, has just taken up the Socialist proposals again. In an interview for the newspaper
he recommends that the Pact should be more flexible when the economic climate is poor and stricter when the economic climate is good. At the recent Ecofin Council, the theory that it would be necessary to reform the Pact in 2005 gained ground. The Socialists will bring their constructive participation to this necessary reform, but Mr Juncker will have difficulty persuading his colleagues in the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, who demonstrate almost religious dogmatism in relation to the Stability and Growth Pact. In fact, stability without growth will only increase the economic and social problems of the European Union.
In this respect, I recommend that you read the paper of Professor Jean-Paul Fitoussi for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. This paper broadly demonstrates that the Stability and Growth Pact has slowed, and continues to slow, growth in Europe. The Pact is particularly harmful to the large European economies, whose economic activity depends more on internal stimulation than that of the small countries, who depend more on external demand. This certainly explains the fact that the small countries seem more virtuous in relation to stability than the large countries, whether the large countries are governed by the left or the right. Stability and Growth Pact reform is, therefore, not a question of politicking, but rather a vital necessity for a Europe that is losing the fight for growth and employment.
Madam President, allow me to address a final word of thanks to Mrs Randzio-Plath. Mrs Randzio-Plath will no longer be part of the next Parliament, which saddens me greatly. With her, we will lose a woman who was committed to the euro, to a social Europe and to a Europe of growth and employment. I think that I speak on behalf of all our fellow Members in thanking her publicly for her work at the head of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs."@en1
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