Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-08-Speech-3-015-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20110608.3.3-015-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, if I may take this opportunity, speaking on behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, I want to respond to Mr Verhofstadt who, as ever, has missed the point and who, as ever, is facing in the wrong direction.
If he had read the report, he would have seen that Her Majesty’s Government said that this is a time of crisis in Europe. He would have noticed that economies are stagnating, jobs are being lost and industries struggling to compete in a fast-changing world. What Europe needed is a budget that is relevant, that is adding value and that engages with the people, but what Mr Verhofstadt and his colleagues are offering is more of the same.
There is a saying: ‘If you do not change direction, you finish up at the point you were heading for when you started out’. This budget needs to change direction. We and Her Majesty’s Government agree that spending should be increased in those areas that add value. We agree: investment in research and development, in trans-European networks for transport, energy and telecommunications should be increased. We agree: education, small businesses and encouraging the Single Market is wise, sound investment and should be encouraged. That will help create jobs and growth. But we do not agree that it is acceptable for this House to take that as a reason to demand a bigger budget.
To Mr Verhofstadt, I have to say this. All over Europe, governments are imposing austerity budgets, and this House would be exceedingly unwise if it does not take on board that message, if it chooses to ignore the letter from the five Heads of Government, because what those five Heads of Government were saying is: more Europe is not the answer; smarter Europe is.
We need a budget which is more focused. In the special committee on the policy challenges and budgetary resources for a sustainable European Union after 2013, we rightly talked about priorities, but then we never acted on it. There was no evidence of a willingness to take tough choices, the kind of choices which are being taken by governments all over Europe at this time.
So we accept that there should be increased expenditure on the new priorities but we also think it was time we looked again at the traditional priorities, so here again, it was another missed opportunity for the European budget."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples