Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-09-15-Speech-3-108"
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"en.20040915.6.3-108"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we have ahead of us a debate that will be a difficult one and crucial to Europe’s future. What is at stake is the credibility of the European Union, of its institutions and of the governments of the Member States. Our experience to date with the single currency has been a good one; it is stable and it and the dollar are the most important currencies in the world, the ones on which all else depends, but the strength of a currency depends not only on the independence of the central bank and on price stability; it also, and in particular, depends on the government’s financial and budgetary policies. An unsound budgetary policy can be an even greater danger in a currency union and damage the Community as a whole, that is to say, all who participate in it, particularly if certain larger countries fail to take the required and necessary action.
It is to prevent this that the Maastricht mechanism, the Stability Pact and the relevant regulations are there, and they have been breached in the past. The fact is that, during economic boom periods, budget deficits were not reduced. Of course, we are all for policies being more flexible when times are hard economically speaking, when greater flexibility is a necessity and has to be guaranteed, but, on the other hand, we can see that there is the great danger that, if the criteria are reinterpreted, deficits will not be reduced when the economy is doing well. Our great fear is that that is what will happen. We very much welcome the European Court of Justice’s decision as regards the relevant procedures, and, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, we welcome last weekend’s decision to give the Commission a new mandate. I also very much welcome your statement to the effect that ‘we will stay within the 3% deficit limit, we do not want to exceed 60%’.
When we look at overall debt, though, we see that it is already well in excess of 60% in some Member States, and so I think that reinterpreting the Treaty and the Stability Pact would encourage new indebtedness and should therefore not be contemplated.
The course that the Council has chosen can – as we have seen – both guarantee that the preset Budget procedure will continue and encourage a number of Member States to revert to the budgetary discipline that the Treaty prescribes and which is vital to the future of Europe. I would like to encourage the Commission to put forward a new proposal within the framework laid down by the Council, and would ask them to prevent the impression being created that we, by reinterpreting or even by amending the law, are pursuing a new European deficit management policy for which we will all have to pay dearly.
For how will investment be possible if interest rates end up spiralling and we have to service the debts, and then there is no money to invest in the economy? My advice to this House, then, is that we stay within the framework of the Treaty, while making use of the necessary flexibility that it provides, both when times are hard and when things are going well, in order to guarantee the continued stability of the European currency in the future."@en1
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