Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-17-Speech-1-090"
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"en.20081117.21.1-090"2
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"Mr President, the Berès-Langen report is an excellent one because what it does is give us the history of the EMU over the last 10 years and say how it should go forward in the future. The euro has been a resounding success: it is the second most important currency in the world; inflation in the first 10 years has broadly been in line with the ECB’s objective of 2%; furthermore, it has facilitated travel, trade and employment; and, most importantly of all, it signifies a further step in EU consolidation.
The announcement last week that the Euro Zone is in recession now means that urgent action will have to be taken both within the EU and globally, but the one thing we cannot do is blame the euro for the current crisis. While the Stability and Growth Pact rules are well-intentioned in setting down maximum borrowing guidelines for Member States, they did not foresee – and nobody could have foreseen – the current global economic crisis. The current crisis in my opinion calls for flexibility because, unless the credit squeeze by the financial institutions is relaxed, there is every possibility that the crisis will get even worse and that more and more jobs will be lost.
I have to say that I want to commend Presidents Barroso and Sarkozy for the manner in which they represented the European Union at the G20 talks in Washington last week. I think they did us proud and I think they did Europe proud.
Finally, we must examine how we got into the current crisis and what the causes were. We must learn the lessons and we must make sure that it never happens again. If this means reform – reform of the institutions, reform of the International Monetary Fund – let us do it. If it means examining the operations of the European Central Bank, let us do it. Let us at this stage carry out a forensic analysis and, whatever the crisis that Europe is now experiencing – we do not know how serious it is, where it is going to end up or what the consequences will be – let us examine it forensically and let us put solutions in place."@en1
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