Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-22-Speech-2-029"
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"en.20050222.4.2-029"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, we are discussing the Lisbon strategy and how Europe is intended to become the most competitive region in the world. We have not managed to achieve that over the last five years, and we have now identified the chief culprit: the Stability and Growth Pact! People are saying that if we scrap the pact Europe will be better off, because that will enable us to make better progress.
I have not heard anyone talking about the homework that needs to be done at national level, and about where the real culprits are to be found – in the Member States. Germany even believes that it is worth making higher net payments to Europe in return for the abolition of the Stability and Growth Pact.
Commissioner Almunia, your predecessor, the Spanish Socialist Mr Solbes, assured this House on several occasions that the Stability and Growth Pact is sufficiently flexible, and I am bound to agree with him. What I cannot accept is that we should keep the 3% and 60% criteria and then, as Chancellor Schröder has done, seek to have certain factors excluded in the run up to or even after the procedure. This is then sold to us under the Lisbon banner by saying that we no longer can or must take anything growth-intensive into account in the procedure from now on. It has to be taken into account. And Germany’s economists tell us that we will then end up with an 8% or 10% deficit. The appropriate sanctions are not being applied here.
If we are to take Lisbon seriously, then we first have to take the Stability and Growth Pact seriously, and not use the argument that ten Member States are in breach of it. I would be delighted if speed limits were applied by saying that if you get caught too often by a speed trap, we will just raise the relevant speed limit so that not so many people are fined in future! Rules are there to be respected.
We need to take the Lisbon strategy seriously. We need to take it seriously when framing EU legislation, so that in future every new directive is checked to see whether it conflicts with the Lisbon objectives or promotes them. The Member States need to make sure that they do not torpedo legislation on the internal market when it is inconvenient for them, and the Commission must take to task those Member States that are at fault. The Commission should introduce benchmarking and announce this in the clearest possible terms. We in Europe have to realise that the world is not flat and that we are engaged in global competition. We need to finally react to this so that people are aware we are taking this subject seriously."@en1
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