Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-04-05-Speech-2-011-000"
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"en.20110405.3.2-011-000"2
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".
Mr President, if one listens attentively to the speeches of Mr Van Rompuy and Mr Barroso, one might be reminded of a famous German song whose words go something like ‘All hands on deck, but the ship is a wreck’. There is no problem – everything is fine. We have solved every difficulty to everyone’s complete satisfaction.
What do we tell the banks? Mr Barroso, I am very pleased to hear you say that you have a proposal for the financial transaction tax. At present the European Central Bank is lending money at 1% to the same banks that then lend this money to Member States of the euro area at 10%. Nothing changes: those who caused the crisis continue to profit most from the crisis. That is why we need a financial transaction tax, so that we can make sure that these banks carry some of the cost of this financial crisis.
Mr Barroso, you mentioned Europe 2020 – more employment, more investment, more research and training, more environmental protection – it all sounds just great: except that this is all to be achieved with less and less public investment. One result is that Europe 2020 and the Lisbon process are extremely positive developments, however they are bound to fail if we only cut budgets unilaterally in the context of Europe’s economic development. What we need is the courage to make public investments. Take a look at the level of investment in the emerging states. Look at the level of public investment in India. Look at Brazil. Look at the other continents and the public funds invested there.
Europe is cutting back to death, which is why we should declare a method of attaining our goals, namely the Europe 2020 objectives, as the legally binding basis in the ‘six-pack’ for economic governance. Governments will then undertake finally to do what they have been loudly promising, only to prevent development with their budgetary cuts – also achieved by cutting the EU budget itself. For this reason, Mr Barroso, I expect you and, more particularly, your Budget Commissioner Mr Lewandowski to produce a committed and ambitious draft budget for the EU that actually facilitates the developments that it demands.
I for one am unable to fathom your reports in relation to the European Council. I can fully understand that you did not wish to come here with a negative report. If I were President of the European Council I would probably also be anxious to portray this permanent Congress of Vienna in the most dazzling terms.
You mentioned Libya. What you failed to mention was the deep differences between Europe’s two largest governments on this issue. There is no consensus between France and Germany on the Libyan question. The differences within the European Union with regard to one of the key international issues is an indication that not everything is under control. Mr Van Rompuy, we would have been better served if the results of this Council meeting had been available to us in 2010. If we had wanted to prevent the downward spiral of the last year, particularly in the euro area, then we should have taken the steps now implemented as long ago as spring 2010.
We need to ask ourselves why these steps were not taken in spring 2010? The answer is that in the European Council, the institution headed up by you, it is not the Community method, community spirit and shared objectives that determine what is discussed and agreed, but rather that national tactical interests ultimately play a greater role than common European interests. This is a particular problem for Europe.
I would have liked to have heard something from you, Mr Barroso, explaining for example how it is that the party that you belong to and once led and that made you Prime Minister of Portugal has now caused a Portuguese government to fall which was implementing precisely the measures demanded by you and the Commissioner sitting next to you.
We cannot accuse you of being responsible for this, after all you are no longer the party leader. However, I would have expected a clear statement from the Head of the Commission about jockeying at national political level and its negative impact on the European Union – after all the collapse of the Portuguese Government coincided precisely with the moment that the government resolved to do exactly what the stability framework required of it. This is no way to take Europe forward.
Something that worries me greatly and that neither of you has mentioned is that we are always faced with exactly the same scenario prior to a European Council meeting. The Heads of State or Government have hardly agreed a measure to stabilise the euro or a particular member of the euro area in its draft conclusions, when some ratings agency in the City of London or in New York downgrades this country, always with the same result, namely triggering a wave of speculation against the euro. When will we finally have the courage to say: ‘Europe is no longer going to be dictated to by these speculators’?"@en1
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