Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-31-Speech-3-195"
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"en.20060531.18.3-195"2
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".
Mr President, the Treaty on European Union states that the accession of new Member States to the euro zone is their right and obligation, as Commissioner Almunia just said. The Socialist Group in the European Parliament fully supports this notion.
The conditions for joining the euro zone are enshrined in the Maastricht Treaty in the form of so-called ‘nominal convergence criteria’. These criteria must be fulfilled in order to join the common currency area, and fulfilment of them is sufficient in order to do so. However, there have been attempts to impose additional conditions on the new Member States, such as ‘real convergence’, or the ‘euro zone absorption capacity’, which has not been defined in detail. These criteria do not exist in the Maastricht Treaty, and so they cannot be applied. There must be no double standards when it comes to new and old Member States. If we fully agree that the provisions of the Treaty must be respected, we should abide by the rule that we are bound by the Treaty, the whole Treaty and nothing but the Treaty.
I would also like to point out that the convergence criteria give rise to a whole series of reasonable doubts as regards economic factors and interpretation. These problems became glaringly obvious in the recent convergence reports on Lithuania and Slovenia. The definition of price stability that the European Commission and the European Central Bank used in their reports assessing fulfilment of the inflation criteria was contrary to the definition of price stability that the ECB applies in its monetary policy.
Other aspects of the assessment are also dubious. This is not a minor matter, because on the basis of the assessment Lithuania was not given a positive recommendation by the Commission for joining the euro zone. This situation gives cause for concern, because the European Commission’s decisions must be reliable and should not give rise to doubts concerning partisanship or lack of objectivity. The rules used when assessing individual Member States must be clear, and the decision-making process must be totally transparent.
Mr President, the convergence criteria formulated 15 years ago, when the Member States still had national currencies and separate monetary policies, should be adapted to the current situation, in which the new Member States are joining an existing common currency area. This requires appropriate amendments to the relevant provisions of Article 121 of the Treaty and the Protocol to the Treaty. I ask for a debate to be opened on this matter."@en1
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