Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-06-16-Speech-3-012"
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"en.20100616.4.3-012"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the men and women who are meeting today and tomorrow in Brussels bear a huge responsibility, because Europe is now standing at a crossroads. The speculators in the international financial centres who have put their money on the failure of the euro want to win their bets. These people are completely immoral and they are not currently subject to any regulations. This is why it is high time for us to draw up regulations and put them in place. However, it will still be the case that the speculators have no moral standards.
We live in an era in which politics is controlled by people with a complete lack of morals and whose only aim is to maximise profits, regardless of the cost. We must make sure that these people lose the battle. One approach which will help to ensure that they lose and that we win is to clamp down on the current tendency for renationalisation in Europe. I am standing up in defence of the Community method, because I know that if we have a single currency, we cannot allow ourselves the luxury of 17 different national economic policies, 17 different planning strategies and 17 different investment decisions. In a single currency area, what we need is an increasingly coordinated, in-depth, common economic policy. We cannot achieve this through the nation state. Instead, we need EU regulations in Europe. We have an institution which can do this and that is the Commission. Mr Barroso, the resolution that we are adopting today and the support that you received from the four group chairs yesterday represent a major vote of confidence in you. However, I am also expecting you to act as a strong, combative Commission President and to tell these people to put a stop to renationalisation.
We have a second task ahead of us. We must put in place a set of values as a response to the people with no morals. This is not about the maximised value of money, but about the values of solidarity, community and protection for those who cannot defend themselves. What sort of people run these rating agencies? I would like to take Spain, which currently holds the Presidency, as an example. Those same rating agencies which forced Spain to adopt an austerity package and told the country it had to save, save, save and then save some more to ensure that its ratings went up are now saying, at the very moment when Spain is putting in place its painful austerity budget, that growth levels are not adequate, because not enough money is being invested. As Spain has no growth strategy, the agencies are lowering its rating. This is a game! These are just the same immoral people who have placed their bets and who are gambling with the fate of entire countries.
We must put a stop to their game. Therefore, I am quite surprised, Mr Barroso, that you are holding back on banning naked short selling, for example. It is time that you took some action. Put a proposal on the table and you will receive majority support.
I want to explain to you why I also believe, together with fellow Members whose opinions I do not always share, that it is important to defend the Community method. The Community method is not a technique. It is a political vision. The Community method is a message. It is a message that whenever the nation state can no longer act alone, the community of states and peoples must step into the breach, in order to defend the interests of the individuals who live in these states and who make up these peoples more effectively than the nation state is able to. This Community method, which is now more than 50 years old, is responsible for the period of greatest prosperity and security and the longest period of peace in the history of Europe. However, there are still people in Europe who want to question not the post-Second World War order, but the post-First World War order. Does anyone really believe that the people who are advocating similar conflicts, who are once again making territorial claims – and there are people like this in Europe, some of them are even members of the national parliaments – would not be ready to use force without the integrative power of Europe? They would be turning the peoples of Europe against each another again if they could.
The Community method is not just a socio-political project. It is a means of maintaining peace on this continent. This is why we need it and this is why I am defending it. Social security and peace go hand in hand. There would be no peace without social security and peace is the best way of guaranteeing social security between the peoples of Europe in the long term."@en1
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