Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-11-Speech-3-012"
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"en.20090311.3.3-012"2
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"Mr President, Mr Vondra, honourable Members, we are living through testing times.
I welcome the broad support that is coalescing around these courses of action in the European Parliament. I would mention, by way of example, the reports we will debate this morning, the Ferreira report on the economic recovery plan, the Andersson report on the guidelines for employment, and the Kirilov report on cohesion policy.
These reports and the resolutions on which your Assembly will vote this week, in particular, those from the Lisbon Strategy coordination group, will make what I consider to be an essential contribution to the European Council. On the eve of the London Summit, they can only strengthen Europe’s position on the international stage, and I welcome that.
Mr President, I would like briefly to pick out three themes which I believe must guide this European Council’s work: stabilising financial markets, revitalising the real economy and helping people make it through the crisis.
Look at the financial system. Yes, we need immediate action to address immediate problems. After our initiatives on recapitalisation and guarantees, our guidance on impaired assets targets the major obstacle now identified as blocking the flow of credit. I believe, and it is in our communication, that without cleaning the banking system, we will not see the restoration of credit flow to the real economy.
But, as has often been argued in this Chamber, we also need to rebuild confidence through a major overhaul of our regulatory regime. That is why we have set out a detailed calendar of new regulatory proposals. Next month, the Commission will come forward with new proposals on hedge funds, on private equity and on executive pay.
However, we must also revamp supervision. As you will have seen from the communication the Commission adopted last Wednesday, and which I had an opportunity to discuss with your Conference of Presidents the following day, the Commission is keen to accelerate implementation of the de Larosière report. We will present the overall architecture at the end of May for endorsement by the European Council in June, and we will come with legislative proposals in the autumn.
In more general terms, beyond financial systems, using short-term action to target our long-term goals will pay double dividends. It will make us stronger when the upturn comes, ready to face the challenge of competitiveness and a low-carbon economy.
Just look at energy security. The fact that we are in an economic crisis does not make our problems of dependency disappear. On the contrary, and I welcome the decision of Prime Minister Topolánek to have a discussion on this issue. This is central to what we are doing. Investing in infrastructure brings a stimulus today, and it is badly needed for the European economy, but it also makes us stronger and more competitive tomorrow. That is why your support, the European Parliament’s support for the EUR 5 billion stimulus to energy and broadband projects is so valuable – the more so as I am rather concerned, to be honest with you, about the state of play in Council, where we are not making the progress I would wish to see.
Of course, we all know that the Community budget, at less than 1% of GDP, can only make a limited contribution to a European-wide stimulus. The money has to come, essentially, from national budgets. However, we need to deploy all national levers in the European perspective in order to be effective. The single market is the best possible platform for recovery. In 2006 alone, Europe was richer by EUR 240 billion, or the equivalent of EUR 518 for every European citizen because of the single market.
The European Council should cement its place at the heart of our recovery strategy by agreeing principles that should shape the European recovery, including a shared commitment to openness and a level playing field internally and externally, thereby clearly rejecting protectionism but, of course, protecting the single market, the bedrock of European prosperity.
An economic crisis of this magnitude makes its effects felt on families, on workers, on all categories of the population and on companies, in the four corners of Europe. It destroys jobs and tests the resistance of our social models. It also puts strong political pressure on all the leaders.
Most importantly, though, we must acknowledge that this is not a question of economic theory or dry statistics. This crisis is having a major impact on people, namely the most vulnerable across Europe – now, today. That is why my number one concern – by far the most important test we face – is the social impact of this crisis, namely the problem of rising unemployment.
We have to focus our energy on employment and on helping people make it through the crisis. This requires determination and imagination. We need to help companies to keep workers on their books, to use training imaginatively to serve long- and short-term needs, and we need to bring help to those already unemployed. We need to be sure that we make the most of national actions to help the most vulnerable but we also need to make the most of the European instruments we have, from the Social Fund to the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund.
Launching a process now which takes us up to the Employment Summit in May gives us two months of intensive efforts to put plans in place and, if possible, to develop new and more ambitious strategies to tackle the unemployment problem. We need to use this time well.
Though time is short, I believe we should try to organise a much more inclusive process in the run-up, involving social partners, civil society and parliamentarians. It is particularly important that we take advantage of your privileged insight into what is really happening on the ground. If we follow this approach of pooling our resources and coordinating action at all levels – at European level, at national level, at regional level, at social partners’ level – we will emerge from the crisis quicker and, I believe, stronger.
We will also carry more weight on the global stage. It is no coincidence that the proposals we have made for the European Union’s G20 position have a strong echo of our approach within Europe. They are based around the same principles. With a unified European Union voice in the G20, they will carry a lot of weight and the European Union will be – if the Member States are ready to really work together – in a very good position to shape the global response to this crisis.
Europe today has to find its strength in cohesion, in coordination, in real practical solidarity. For that, we must all work closely together and stay in close touch as the task of recovery unfolds, including, of course, with this Parliament.
I look forward to making this a reality as we all work for recovery in the coming weeks and months.
The European Union is not immune from such tensions. This is why it has decided to bring into play all the levers at its disposal to get to grips with the crisis and its consequences, by using what gives it its force: European institutions and Member States working together in a community based on the rule of law to provide collective solutions to common problems.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have already done much in these last six months to fight the crisis that we are experiencing. We avoided a collapse of the financial system in the autumn; we contributed to the launch of an international process with the G20; we were among the first to focus on the real economy by agreeing a recovery plan in December, a plan whose number one recommendation – a budgetary stimulus never seen before at European level – is beginning to be implemented. This support for the real economy amounts to a total of 3.3% of GDP and includes a real contribution from the European budget.
The recovery plan includes, for example, accelerated advances from the structural funds for an envelope of EUR 6.3 billion in 2009, in addition to the EUR 5 billion already committed.
The actions carried out in the last six months are fully in line with the Lisbon Strategy for growth and employment. Structural reforms, which have been of great help in strengthening our economies, must be pursued because they also help to maintain short-term demand, but we must now move on to the next stage and deploy the measures for combating the crisis more thoroughly.
We need greater coordination and wider-ranging effects. Now is the time to move up a gear in our response to the crisis. We must understand that this is a new type of crisis and that we never envisaged a crisis of such dimensions, of such magnitude, of such depth.
This will be the mission for the European Council next week. With the very strong support of the Czech Presidency, whose commitment and complete cooperation with the Commission I welcome, I am convinced there will be progress in four areas that the Commission defined a few days ago in its communication, namely, the financial markets, the real economy, employment and the social dimension, and the global dimension via the G20.
The informal summit of 1 March – thanks to a very large extent to the effective chairmanship of Prime Minister Topolánek – has already laid the foundations for a fruitful European Council. I am proud to note that the Commission’s preparatory work has met with such a favourable reception. Our guidelines on impaired assets, our communication on the automotive sector and the report that I have entrusted to Jacques de Larosière and his high-level group have enabled the Member States to build a consensus so that they can rally round common positions."@en1
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