Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-11-18-Speech-2-270"
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"en.20081118.29.2-270"2
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the fact that the G20 states have held a meeting shows that progress has been made. The fact that they have convened in this way indicates that the world is changing, that we are developing into a multipolar world in which the European Union can, and will, play a central role if it stays united, if we do our homework and if we actually perform the task that we have been set.
Therefore the decisive issue is, President of the Commission, whether we have enough time. From your speech, I understand that you intend to present the measures, which you are going to develop in the Commission in connection with the report from Mr Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, at the spring meeting. That is too late. As far as the hedge funds and the private equity funds are concerned, we want the measures now. If I have understood matters correctly, Mr McCreevy submitted initial measures concerning the banks to the Commission last week. It is only a very small package. If we want credibility, we need to discuss the rating agencies now. We want to discuss the regulation of these agencies as quickly as possible. We want measures in connection with the private equity funds and hedge funds now. We want to discuss managers’ salaries now. We want to discuss short selling now. The fact is, people are already getting used to the situation. We are experiencing a financial crisis and large-scale discussions are taking place but the ladies and gentlemen from the world of finance are already taking up their positions again. I would like to read you a short quote from a letter from Mr Ackermann, the Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Bank, to George W. Bush – two very interesting correspondents. We must prevent, writes Mr Ackermann, the public sector from taking a permanently larger role in the international financial system. No, this must not be prevented, it is precisely this that is the aim of the action which we are now taking, namely that there is more regulation and more international cooperation to enforce this regulation.
We have now reached a decisive crossroads, a decisive point in time when we have to ask ourselves the following question. In the future, will there be stricter requirements, stricter controls and, I might add, legal prohibition of certain types of speculation and abuse or are we protecting banks, are we protecting funds from collapse? They gratefully accept the money and then carry on unimpeded. It is almost like giving a burnt-out gambler, who has lost everything in a casino, more money just for him to happily carry on just as before. No, what we have to find out is who owns the casino, what rules are used for gambling, how the winners are taxed and, most importantly, whether the procedures in the casino are transparent and whether those who are responsible for what goes on there can also be brought to account. That must be our goal. The goal of the EU must be to define its own rules which the EU itself then enforces within the G20 countries and in the international organisations.
Things cannot go on in the same way as before. We must also be clear in our minds that we have a responsibility towards the ordinary citizens of the European Union whose money is used to pay for the disasters that others have caused. I will give you a brief example. Just imagine, Mr Barroso, that you go to your bank. You are one of the better paid people in Europe, just like I am. You go to your bank and say: ‘Here is EUR 1 000 and I would like a 25% rate of return.’ The man in the bank would reply: ‘Mr Barroso, are you feeling unwell? You are usually such a sensible person. You actually seem really rather clever.’ However, when Mr Ackermann speaks to his shareholders and says: ‘We want returns of 25% this year’, he gets a standing ovation. At long last, we have to close the gap between the philosophy of these people and everyday life. It is not acceptable that in international business, dealings are done based on these cool, cold considerations of financial returns alone. In order to achieve this we need the rules to stop this kind of abuse.
If, in the next few months, by the end of this parliamentary term, we have acted sensibly, we will have closed the gap between the business world’s perception and what it views as the real world, and what the ordinary people, the people in the companies, perceive as being the real world. The real world in companies is the world in which the money that has been thrown away, and the money for the deficits which the community of states now convening is confronted with and which have to be financed by means of rescue packages amounting to billions of euros, has to be taken from taxpayers’ wallets and from the real economy. Therefore we cannot limit ourselves to just rescuing the banks and the funds. Investment in the real economy is also of primary importance. We must secure jobs. We must protect the economy from collapse. Yesterday, my friend Mr Steinmeier presented an interesting plan, a plan which aims to revitalise investment in all national economies in the European Union and which, above all, presents the Commission with one particular question. Can we use the resources that we have already set aside for the next six or seven years for investment in infrastructure, in the Lisbon Process, in research, in qualifications and in setting up a telecommunications infrastructure in Europe? Can we invest them now in order to trigger employment and growth quickly? In my opinion this issue is just as important as regulation of the international financial markets.
I believe that we have reached a turning point. Thank you, Mr President. You pointed out that I might have been wrong about when the Commission will be ready. Be ready before the spring meeting. Be ready soon, because the horse racing will start again in the spring and so Mr McCreevy will once again no longer be here. We need the Commission’s measures now, as soon as possible. I expect you to make the relevant proposals here in December."@en1
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