Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-16-Speech-3-016-000"
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"en.20111116.5.3-016-000"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, today, Mario Monti is introducing his new Government. Prime Minister Papademos is today facing a vote of confidence in the Greek parliament. Both of these Heads of Government – the one in Italy and the one in Greece – are certainly facing challenges of historic proportions in their respective countries. On behalf of my group, I would like to start – after what has been, it seems to me, a very technical debate – by saying that this Parliament, too, would like to express its solidarity with the people of these countries, who have to cope with the biggest crisis. We are discussing Treaty changes and the structure of the EU – when will we actually be debating the fact that these countries need investments and growth, without which they will never recover? That is the task with which we must engage this morning.
We accept the fact that the Heads of State or Government of the euro area states need to come together under the pressure of the markets and, where necessary, also have to take quick decisions outside the Treaty. We accept that one hundred per cent. What is currently being attempted, though, is to make a rule out of this exception, and that is wrong. I will tell you where that leads: if we discuss revising the Treaty, we also discussing whether or not the Community method is to remain.
In that respect, Mr Daul is right when he makes reference to the speeches of the British Prime Minister. Is the Community method to remain or not? Like my fellow Members, I do not defend the Community method because it is a technique, but because behind it is a philosophy. The Community method was the opportunity – Europe’s big achievement – to balance the interests of large, medium and smaller states with one another in common institutions.
If we give that up and the Heads of State or Government of the euro area represent the economic government, I have to ask on what basis decisions will be reached. Will they be made by unanimity? If unanimity is the system, then that leaves us dependent on the result of the ballot vote of the FDP party in Germany, on whether a narrow majority of 60 000 members of that party will decide the future of the euro. If decisions are made by majority voting, then it is always Germany and France that have the majority. Yet that leaves Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy to decide on what Luxembourg must do, or Mr Monti in Rome, or Mr Papademos in Athens. What we have then is not the European Council, it is the Congress of Vienna – and we do not want to go back to those days.
Mr President, before you again refuse to respond to all the shouting and screaming, many thanks for your attention.
Mr Monti has said that democracy needs time. He is absolutely right. However, the markets do not give democracy time. What we are experiencing is a footrace between democracies and anonymous forces that expose the democracies to an indeterminable risk through their speculation. We would therefore be well advised to do everything we can to stabilise those countries that, in my estimation, and that of my group, are not only the victims of excessive national debts, but also subject to speculation through which, as a result of these national debts, democratic State systems can be driven to bankruptcy while people make money out of that very occurrence.
We are, at the moment, spending a lot of time discussing what the Council is and is not doing – and what it wants and does not want to do – and what the Commission brings to the table, and what it does not want to bring to the table. I want to tell you which institution in this Europe of ours delivers. In six months, Parliament has delivered the six-pack and the Canfin report, which we adopted here: the ban on naked short selling – a tough measure against speculation – was delivered by this House. That being the case, I would like to thank the President of the European Council for ending his speech by saying that we are a rich source of ideas. Parliament is no think tank though – we represent the citizens of Europe, and we deliver tangible solutions.
We are discussing a revision of the Treaty, indeed we are. I do not know whether Mr Monti needs a debate about revising the Treaty. Nor do I know whether Greece needs a debate about revising the Treaty at this point in time. The reason we are debating a revision of the Treaty is that Chancellor Merkel wants to write the six-pack into it. That is all. And you two, there – and you, as well – do not have the guts to say ‘Leave it be!’, despite the fact that everyone here knows that you do not actually want it. That is the reality.
It is my belief that, if this revision of the Treaty takes place because it has been forced, then I say to you, once again, what I said to you last time, which is that a convention would then be needed, and Parliament would have to be involved in that. I want to make it very plain to you that without the European Parliament there will not be any efficient reforms in the European Union – and I refer you back to what I said before.
One of the reasons for this is that this House is the best institution to ensure cohesion in Europe. What we are experiencing is the splitting of this continent. I have said it on numerous occasions, there is a tripartism: there is the cosy Franco-German relationship, the rest of the euro area, and the rest of Europe."@en1
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