Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-30-Speech-3-087-000"
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"en.20111130.14.3-087-000"2
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"Madam President, we are indeed entering a critical period of ten days to complete a comprehensive and effective response to the crisis by the European Union. European citizens are calling for decisive action from leaders in order to protect sustainable growth and employment and in order to counter the contagion that is currently going on in the financial markets, which is threatening our jobs and growth.
The European Council will at this critical juncture need to take bold and determined action to reverse the current negative dynamics in the financial markets. It calls for immediate decisions both to ensure fiscal consolidation and growth-boosting reforms in the Member States. It calls for further reinforcement of our financial firewalls and for a road map on how to further reinforce economic governance and in parallel to put in place new stability instruments and thus to create a true economic union. Our citizens expect us to do whatever is needed in order to protect jobs and growth and we can best do it by deeper economic integration in Europe.
This means that countries under market pressure need to continue to put their fiscal house in order and reform their economies to generate growth and jobs. This work is going on, not only in the ‘programme countries’, but more recently, for instance in Belgium and Italy with new governments, new budgets and/or other new perspectives.
In parallel we must reinforce our economic governance and strengthen massively our financial firewalls to counter the speculation in the markets. To be credible and effective these efforts must be based on the Community method. That is the Commission’s position on how to tackle the crisis.
We need to work on all relevant fronts. Yes, the decisions of the eurozone summit of October need to be fully implemented. That is a necessary, even if not sufficient, condition of overcoming the crisis.
As to the Treaty-change debate, let us be clear on that. A Treaty change cannot offer an immediate contribution to the solution of the current crisis. But it is true that reinforcing fiscal discipline and economic surveillance, in the euro area in particular, may help to prevent any future fiscal crisis. Thus it matters to the confidence in the construct of the euro, which has been questioned in recent weeks.
In the meantime, the Commission has taken the initiative and we have proposed new legislation that will strengthen economic governance significantly. We have done that within the scope of the current Treaty.
The two regulations which I introduced today, based on Article 136, will ensure closer monitoring of fiscal and economic policies. They add another building block onto the economic and fiscal union and especially onto tighter fiscal surveillance based on the ‘six-pack’ legislation which you have recently approved. I sensed yesterday in the Euro Group and today in the Ecofin meeting of Finance Ministers that there is strong support for these proposals – and even going beyond these proposals – among the Ministers. I trust that is also the case here in the European Parliament.
Concerning our financial firewalls, the Euro Group yesterday took important decisions on the leveraging of the EFSF and thus reinforcing the financial firewalls. These have already been welcomed by several market participants, including the Institute of International Finance. In the very short term – or rather immediate term – this work must continue and we must consider further means to reinforce this leveraging effect, for instance through increasing resources available from the IMF for the European Union. In the longer – or rather already medium term – the Green Paper on stability bonds lays out credible options which to a different extent, depending on the option considered, could bring us closer to a fiscal union, could protect us better against speculative attacks, and would also reassure markets to have confidence in the credibility of the euro.
Let me underline again – as I said in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs a few days ago and I have said several times before other compositions of Parliament – the necessary condition for considering any serious move towards Eurobonds or stability bonds is a further and very substantial reinforcement of economic governance to ensure fiscal discipline and economic stability, in fact to build a real fiscal union or an ever-closer economic union."@en1
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