Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-01-19-Speech-3-012-000"
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"en.20110119.4.3-012-000"2
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"Mr President, December’s European Council at least gave us political agreement on a permanent crisis resolution mechanism but – given the reaction of the markets after Christmas, with new fears over the solvency of Portugal, Spain, and Belgium – we have to ask whether, once again, this was a case of ‘too little too late’. The proposed European stabilisation mechanism itself raised new questions on the financial markets and the existing Financial Stability Mechanism is now regarded as insufficient. Opportunities have been missed again.
In December, Parliament sent a clear signal to the Council on eurobonds but there has been no constructive response from either the Council or the Commission. What we have had ever since 2008 is repeated hesitation and internal wrangling between Member States and the institutions, and each time, a painfully extracted response – but produced too late and constituting less than what was required.
The clearest illustration of the problem is the fact that, in the face of today’s economic and monetary challenges, we simply do not have the tools we need. They are inappropriate or non-existent. Our institutional decision-making processes are complex and lacking in democracy, and our economic policy strategy is divided and ineffective.
The financial markets are not keeping the pressure on us just because of high debt and deficit levels, President Barroso: they are also doing so because they want compensation for the risk of lending money to a project that seems incapable of reaching maturity or fulfilling its own destiny.
What is holding the eurozone together today is less the dream of the founding fathers than simply the nightmare of the alternative: total collapse of the system. The abject failure to deal with the crisis is driving the European project into political deadlock. What chance is there, right now, of a stronger and more democratic set of institutions emerging from a revised Treaty?
Intelligent calls for more political integration, like that last week from the head of the German Bundesbank, really do not stand a chance. Against this background, I am shocked, President Barroso, at the frontal attack by the Commission on social Europe and the interference with national labour markets, as in the case of Ireland. The annual growth survey is indeed a frontal attack on long-established, socially and economically essential workers’ rights and on the very concept of collective bargaining.
If this is validated by the European Council, it is a strategy which, in my view, is the worst imaginable in the situation we currently face. Not only will it be exposed as economic lunacy, but it will be profoundly damaging to the European project.
Big ideas can fail, Mr President, and I really worry about this European project. As history tells us, people will deny the possibility of failure right up to the last moment. Let us recognise the possibility of failure.
Mr Farage is nodding. The failure to act, President Van Rompuy, President Barroso, is feeding ammunition to Mr Farage and his allies. Let us act, for heaven’s sake!"@en1
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