Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-22-Speech-3-179-000"
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"en.20110622.16.3-179-000"2
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"Mr President, the Greens want economic governance. Not just to please people, not so that it will make a nice photo, but simply to give the European people instruments, by building on the euro, that will enable them to meet the challenges of the 21st century, in other words to ensure a decent standard of living for everyone, not just for the happy few, and to do it within the planet’s physical limitations – and this is what is new, of course.
In this respect, we support these reports on the budget frameworks and the macroeconomic component of the ‘economic governance’ package. We are satisfied with all the indicators that have been selected, even though we would have liked one of them to have been income inequalities, as they are a very clear sign of both a poorly functioning economy and a poorly functioning society and should therefore act as a warning sign.
However, our agreement on the macroeconomic component is conditional upon maintaining a symmetrical approach, and this is a point I make to the Council. In other words, we believe that all the Member States should be in the same boat, whether they have a current deficit or a surplus, for example. There is no reason why we should apply favouritism, as one country’s surplus is another country’s deficit.
As regards the Stability and Growth Pact, we cannot accept an instrument whose only outcome is and will remain austerity, austerity and more austerity, in other words which will result in making only the most vulnerable in our societies pay for the economic crisis.
We wanted balance, not by having less budget discipline but by combining it with disciplined investment. Our proposal was to make the goals that Europe set itself with the EU 2020 strategy not only binding, but as binding as each other and as binding as the rules on the budget or on deficits. I am disappointed that a majority could not be found in this Parliament to finally back this strategy and take it more seriously.
We might have agreed to vote in favour of this stability and growth package unchanged had it been accompanied by an ambitious fiscal package, combining a financial transaction tax, an energy tax, a fair tax on transnational corporations and, of course, measures to combat tax fraud, so that we could help the Union’s Member States fund the goals they hope to achieve. However, there was not the slightest sign of this. There is absolutely nothing in the pipeline, despite the declarations that Mr Barroso has made again today.
I say this to the right: you chose to form a narrow majority with the eurosceptics, as you were free to do, in order to create a form of economic governance which I can tell you now is unfair and will be ineffective.
We will see what happens, therefore, either in this Parliament when your pact with the eurosceptics has fallen through, or at the polls in France in 2010 and in Germany in 2013, where I think the voters will agree with us."@en1
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