Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-25-Speech-2-476-000"
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"en.20111025.28.2-476-000"2
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"Mr President, for me, the results of last weekend have clarified two main points. On the one hand, it became clear that everything that had been decided about Greece was incorrect and that everything which could have been done wrongly was done wrongly, and thanks to the report from the troika, this was also made clear to the Council. As long ago as July, the Council proposed a haircut for Greece which was criticised then for being too small. The funding for the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) was also too low in July. The unilateral insistence on austerity measures in Greece has ended in exactly the disaster that was predicted. The measures decided on in Brussels have exacerbated the crisis in Greece, both the Greek crisis and therefore the European crisis, from summit to summit.
The second insight which emerged from the weekend and from the repeated postponement is that it is not possible to manage a crisis in Europe by means of crisis summits. The very point which we have repeatedly reminded everyone about, in other words, that we need a different form of economic policy and stabilisation management, has once again been demonstrated by the way in which the Heads of State or Government went their separate ways after three days of intensive preparations.
My group is calling for different results from the new summit. Tomorrow night, we would like to see an end to the repeated pattern of crisis summits where too few decisions are made too slowly and too inconsistently. We believe that the Greek haircut should be well over 50%. In addition, we must ensure that the speculators who have consistently been speculating on the bankruptcy of Greece on the basis of what amounts to a state guarantee do not once again earn billions of euro in profit overnight.
However, we also want to see a different signal being sent to Greece. The Greek economy has once again crashed as a result of our measures. We need a convincing plan for the reconstruction of the Greek economy. In the opinion of the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, the clear focus should be on sustainability, in the light of the EU 2020 decisions. I know that we cannot decide on the details, but we need to start working on a credible plan.
The decision on the EFSF – I do not like the stupid term ‘bazooka’ – must be made in such a way that the funding can be increased. Anyone who talks about solidarity must once again ensure at this point that the financial engineering measures which we are planning to employ do not make the public budgets unmanageable or impose too heavy a burden on them. We need to find a happy medium in this case, too.
With regard to the recapitalisation of the banks, on the basis of our current knowledge, it is clear that this is once again happening too slowly. The process of nationalising responsibility for this guarantees that Dexia will not be a one-off case, but will be repeated.
Finally, we have seen how Europe cannot be led out of the crisis. I believe strongly that we should now discuss in detail amendments to the Treaty and that we should also establish a convention which allows the citizens of Europe to understand what types of amendments are being made. However, in the light of the increasing divide between the European economies and of the major and acute problems we are facing, I believe that we should now take another bold step. We must enhance the status of the Commissioner responsible for financial programming and budgets in the Commission in Brussels. We must empower him to promote sound, viable budgets based on the principle of solidarity and also to encourage economic policy development. Anyone who does not dare to do this is not brave enough to lead the EU out of the crisis.
I would like to express one final wish based on the example of Germany which relates to many Europeans. Anyone who is afraid of their voters cannot overcome the European crisis. We are having to remind Ms Merkel about Helmut Kohl and Helmut Schmidt and we are having to remind Mr Westerwelle about Joschka Fischer. Anyone who recognises that something is the right thing to do must take action and must justify their actions to their voters. Then they may be able to win elections, but without this courage they will lose at home and may also lose the European Union."@en1
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