Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-03-13-Speech-2-641-000"
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"en.20120313.26.2-641-000"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, the economic and financial crisis has been, and is being, expressed differently in the various Member States. This reflects the existing divergences and imbalances; it reflects the inequalities existing between the Member States. These inequalities are expressed in multiple ways. One of these concerns the capacity for accessing and using EU funds.
I shall conclude, Mr President, by asking you why the regulation establishing Union financial measures for the implementation of the common fisheries policy has not been included in the Commission proposal. This regulation funds very important areas, such as the collection of data and scientific opinions, and the percentages of EU cofinancing in this area are generally low: 50% at most. Why was this regulation – and the measures that finance it – not also covered by the Commission proposal?
The countries with weaker economies, which need more EU funding, are often also those with the greatest difficulties in accessing these funds. For years, this resulted, in large measure, from the restrictions on public investment, imposed under the pretext of the Stability and Growth Pact, which made it hard to mobilise the required national effort. These restrictions are currently being greatly exacerbated by the IMF and EU programmes under way in countries like Portugal, Greece and Ireland.
The political choices set out in these programmes are leading the countries that have been bailed out and their populations into a tragic and profound economic recession, destroying a major part of their economic and social fabric, and affecting both their capacity for private investment – particularly, small and medium-sized enterprises – and public investment, which is and has been reduced to record lows in some cases.
The coastal communities most dependent on fishing cannot avoid this general framework. There is an aggravating factor in this specific case: years of decline and breakdown resulting from the specific changes that have occurred in this sector can be added to this general framework.
There has long been a need for this Commission proposal to increase EU cofinancing for these countries and to reduce correspondingly national contributions; it has come too late.
It has already been two years since the European Commission itself pointed out significant under-execution of the European Fisheries Fund. It even identified the causes of this under-execution. This proposal, then, has long been needed and has come regrettably late. For this reason, it is clear that the need to adopt it is urgent and we believe it is important to adopt it at first reading. However, despite this, let us not forget the limitations that this proposal also clearly demonstrates. I also wish to express some of these here, in the hope that the Commission will take due account of them.
We believe that the Commission should analyse the extent to which this change actually provides the Member States with the funds necessary for supporting projects and the recovery of their economies, as provided for in the Commission proposal. It should be noted that the restrictions imposed on investment by the bailout programmes could, even under the new conditions, continue to make it hard to mobilise the required national contribution of 15% and 40%, for eligible and ineligible regions respectively, under the umbrella of the Convergence Objective.
As such, we believe the Commission should consider the need to remove restrictions on investment, on the one hand, but also the possibility of reducing national cofinancing even further. Moreover, it should be stressed that the Commission proposal does not increase the budget available to each Member State. The practical result of this choice, as a result of the reduction in national contributions for the countries in the greatest difficulties, will be to channel an overall sum of investment into the sector that is comparatively smallest in relation to that which was initially envisaged. As a result, the prospects for growth opened up by the investment made in these Member States will be reduced. Once again, it is the principle of cohesion that could be under threat, so the Commission should consider the possibility of increasing the funds made available to these countries.
Furthermore, the rules for calculating deficits in public accounts should separate spending on investment from other public spending; the former should not be considered, so as not to prioritise so-called budgetary consolidation over economic growth, without which any consolidation will be rendered unviable in the medium and long term."@en1
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