Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-07-07-Speech-3-024"
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"en.20100707.6.3-024"2
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".
Mr President. Mr Leterme, I have a very great deal of respect and esteem for you. You are rotating President and, at the same time, outgoing Prime Minister. You are actually without a mission, but will still have to retain your mission in Europe. You are a European missionary, as it were. May I give you a few pieces of advice? I am not going to use the standard bureaucratic language, but would point out that you are a West Fleming. You are hard working, persistent and thrifty; which I consider excellent qualities. Like many West Flemings, you also have a good measure of common sense. I have become rather more familiar with West Flemish politics in recent years. Yet I should like to protect you from the ‘Tower of Babel’ effect. You say more Europe, we need more, and so on. We must take care not to build a Tower of Babel, paying more attention to the colossus itself than to quality. The Stability and Growth Pact is one example of this. We have had a Stability and Growth Pact, which Mr Prodi described in 2002 as stupid and inflexible. ‘Stupid’ was the word he used; and then, of course, these things collapse.
The common thread in your programme is, in fact, money. First and foremost, we must look at the euro. Our worries are not at an end. Will Greece make it or not? Are we heading towards a situation of
if I may put it that way? That would be a bad thing. I am in favour of a healthy euro. If you are, too, you have the full support of the European Conservatives and Reformists. The solution is budgetary discipline, a smaller administration and more debt restructuring. The example of the United States has shown that large-scale bailout programmes do not help. Employment rates are not rising in that country.
This is also about the budget. Indeed, I should like to ask you a question about this. You talk about more Europe, to which everyone in Belgium replies – and there is also a tradition of this in Belgian foreign policy – that this means more money. I am not so much in favour of that. The Commission frequently has to contend with under-execution as it is. Sometimes, it has money left over from the Structural Funds. In 2008, the Commission had to repay EUR 4.5 billion to Member States, and so 1% of GNP is enough.
Finally, you should be wary of a European tax. In Germany, the atmosphere is explosive. Its people cannot pay for everything.
German politicians do not always dare to say this, so I am saying it for them. In Germany, the maxim is:
Mr Schulz. We shall see about the former on Sunday, but I agree with the latter. Therefore, we should not raise the subject of European taxes. You are doing so, and Mr Verhofstadt has always done so, although I have never been sure if he was speaking on his own behalf or that of his group. Mr Dehaene is also starting to discuss this again. This must be avoided, or the Tower of Babel will collapse."@en1
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"Deutschland kann nicht immer zahlen."1
"Weltmeister ja, Zahlmeister nein,"1
"l’euro du beurre et l’euro des olives"1
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