Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-04-05-Speech-2-012-000"
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"en.20110405.3.2-012-000"2
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"Mr President, first of all I would like to thank Mr Van Rompuy for this report on the Council, but let us be honest, I do not think that the crisis is over, and I do not believe that, with the measures we are taking now, it can be over. There is a heavy thunderstorm on our doorstep.
What we have done in the European Union so far is to use stop-gaps: measures which may be necessary but are not in fact solving the crisis. We have given EUR 110 billion to Greece and EUR 67 billion to Ireland, and I am not including the EUR 24 billion for the Irish banks that we have just decided to provide. For the moment we have EUR 76 billion in government bonds which the ECB has purchased. I can tell you that it will continue to do that, because the emergency fund is not allowed to go on the secondary markets. This means that it will continue to do so. On top of that, the ECB has accepted EUR 100 billion of collateral to give liquidity to the banks in Europe. In total, that is EUR 400 billion that we have invested in this crisis in recent months. That is three times the budget of the European Union! And the worst is still to come. On Thursday there will probably be an increase in interest rates in Europe –from 1% to 1.25% – which may worsen the situation. It is necessary to combat inflation, but on the other hand this is making the situation worse.
So that is the situation: EUR 400 billion that we have invested. And have we solved the crisis? No, we have not solved the crisis. What is necessary is a really bold and in-depth approach and we do not have that for the moment. In this regard I would like to quote Nout Wellink, the President of the Dutch national bank, who published his annual report a few days ago. He says three things about the outcome of our decisions and those of the Council in recent weeks. He says that the budget rules are not tight enough, the economic governance package is too little and the pact for the euro is in fact too weak because there is no mechanism to enforce it. I am not the one saying this, I am quoting Nout Wellink, President of the Dutch national bank, who is repeating exactly what Mr Trichet said last week. The third thing he mentioned is that financial supervision is being conducted on too national a basis.
I think Nout Wellink is right. We can even add a number of other elements. The first is the EFSF and the ESM. The permanent and temporary rescue funds cannot work because they have a unanimity rule. If we keep this rule, it means that the entire eurozone will from now on be hijacked by eurosceptic governments and by eurosceptic political parties.
Finally – and this is my message for today – we still have to clean up the European banks. The problem has not been solved and the economic recovery in Europe will not start if we do not first of all deal with that problem. Not only do they have the old products from the financial crisis still in their portfolios, but they now also have a number of bonds in their portfolios from problematic countries whose ratings are going down every day and at least every week.
What I am asking is that Mr Barroso and Mr Trichet come forward as quickly as possible with a global response on that issue, namely a bolder Stability Pact – and Parliament is working on that – and economic governance. Is there real economic governance? What we have now is an intergovernmental approach without a sanction mechanism and that will not work. It has not worked in the past and it will not work in the future. We must come forward with a proposal to abolish the unanimity rule in the rescue funds, because it cannot work. We are in fact giving all the power to the countries and the parties who are against the system.
Finally, we have to come forward with a plan for the European banking sector. We will not have economic recovery before you have put on the table a European mechanism to clean up the banks. We all know that will take money. Recapitalise the European banks, finance investment in Europe – as has been requested by Mr Schulz – and at the same time cover the bad public finances of a number of our Member States. How will we do that? Where is the money? The only way to find the money is to create a real European bond market, and we know it. Creating a European bond market is the only way out of the crisis.
I would like to say to Mr Barroso that now is the time for him to deliver. Time is running out and it is not only with a pact for the euro that we will solve the problems."@en1
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