Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-03-25-Speech-4-019"
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"en.20100325.3.4-019"2
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"Mr President, coming from a non-eurozone Member State, I am not sure whether my opinion holds much weight with my colleagues in this debate. Currently, many would claim that the eurozone problem is one which should be solved by eurozone members.
However, the euro does not sit in isolation. It sits in the global market and has been affected by the global financial and economic crisis just as those outside the eurozone have. How we manage our states’ finances during the good years entirely affects how we are able to react and recover today. As many have pointed out, there is a reason why Germany faces a very different government deficit to Greece. While they may be united by a common currency, attitudes towards saving and spending vary considerably. Joining a monetary union did not unite completely different cultures and traditions of fiscal policy.
The UK perspective has a lot to say on differences in fiscal policy. We also bloated our public sector, spent and spent in the good years, borrowing more and more to create debts we could not even admit to when it looked as though the good times were gone forever, and creating a culture where a supposedly respected economist from the UK even last week stood up in front of one of our committees and claimed that governments can magic money.
Fundamentally, money to fund the public sector does not magically appear. It comes from tax receipts from the private sector. Germany realises this. Its policies in the recent past have focused upon using government spending and incentives to help stimulate the private sector. Hence, it is now in a strong position for recovery. Ultimately, the public sector has done its job in the crisis. It bailed out the banks and stepped up when the private sector failed. Now it is the turn of the private sector to replenish the coffers.
The downside of austerity measures, which will put hardworking people out of public sector jobs, must be turned into an upside for start-up companies, taking advantage of entrepreneurial spirit by reducing start-up costs for businesses so that they can create the profitable private sector that is required to dig all of our countries out of the holes we now find ourselves in. All of those countries that have practised unsustainable economic policies for the past few years – including my own – need to realise that change is essential and inevitable."@en1
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