Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-06-08-Speech-3-292"
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"en.20050608.21.3-292"2
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".
Mr President, we have long been warning of the economic and social consequences of implementing the Stability and Growth Pact and of the risks of attaching absolute priority to nominal convergence, without taking account of the reality of each Member State, their differing levels of development and varying budgetary needs. The irrational nature of the criteria – public deficit below 3% of GDP, public debt below 60%, or indeed the subsequent objectives of achieving zero deficit – did not, and still does not, have any economic justification. We have always said that following this path would have an adverse effect on economic growth and jobs, and this is being borne out by reality.
Furthermore, the recession in countries with excessive deficit has been exacerbated by the possibility of fines, the pegging of the cohesion fund to the Stability and Growth Pact and constraints on public investment, and, by extension, on the proper implementation of the Structural Funds. This is one of the main factors behind the so-called ‘deterioration’ in the EU accounts, an issue that has come to the fore in recent years, and to which the over-valuation of the euro has certainly contributed.
Current economic and social reality bears out our stance. This was also the case when ex-President Prodi and other Members of his Commission controversially labelled the Stability and Growth Pact as ‘stupid’ and as having ‘medieval’ criteria. This is why we are holding this debate today. Furthermore, the Stability and Growth Pact would not otherwise have been revised, aside from the many cosmetic changes made at last year’s Spring European Council. It is now true that the Council and the Commission have repeatedly said that a degree of sanity needs to be restored to the Stability and Growth Pact, that relevant factors in the analysis of budgetary situations must be taken into account, and that the objective of zero deficit is not the be-all-and-end-all.
They insist, however, on maintaining the Stability and Growth Pact as a key instrument in achieving their neoliberal aims of undermining the public sector and the social responsibilities of the State, whilst promoting price stability, wage moderation and the privatisation, most worryingly, of social security.
The Council therefore reaffirms the aims of the Stability Pact and its benchmarks, and prevents any expenditure from being excluded from the deficit calculation.
What the Council adopted was simply the provision of more time, especially to countries guilty of non-compliance such as Germany and France. The room for interpretation on the basis of the Lisbon structural reforms – what is known as the ‘Lisbonisation’ of the Pact – is little more than a means of enabling the more powerful countries to make interpretations that suit their interests, and not intrinsically for us to have an
Pact.
What we need is to suspend the Stability and Growth Pact and to make a clean break from the current economic guidelines – this was the clear message from the French and Dutch no votes on the so-called ‘European Constitution’ – in order to create the macro-economic conditions to revitalise the economy, to stimulate job creation and to work proactively to combat growing unemployment and high poverty and inequality levels in the EU."@en1
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