Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-09-12-Speech-3-027-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20120912.4.3-027-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, I begin today on a happy note remembering that it is 20 years ago this very week since the United Kingdom, having been signed up by the Conservative Government to the Exchange Rate Mechanism, broke out of the ERM. It was a great liberation for us and, of course, once having been bitten we did not join the euro project, thank goodness. Sadly, the same is not true for much of the rest of Europe.
I thought, through the last 18 months or so, that the economic logic of why Britain left the ERM would apply, particularly to those Mediterranean countries, and I foresaw that actually those countries would leave the euro zone, probably with Greece leaving this year. But I now have to accept that I have been wrong about that, because I had totally underestimated the complete fanaticism of you, Mr Barroso, your college of Commissioners, and the European Central Bank. You have come out fighting on all fronts. Today you announced that there is going to be a banking union, yet more centralised control, yet more regulation.
You make it clear that whilst you think the nation state should continue to exist, it must not have any democratic powers. All democracy is to be vested here under what you call the ‘Community method’ which of course means that your unelected Commission has the sole right to present that legislation, so I do not believe you when you say that and I find the tone of much of what has been said and done over the last few days really very worrying.
Mario Draghi, now known by some that believe in the euro as Super Mario, showed us his big bazooka the other day. He upped the stakes and he told us – and to me it is an odd concept – that he had unlimited money. Now, I do not think money grows on trees and I think that money is limited to what the German, Dutch and Finnish taxpayers are prepared to put in, but he has made clear his intention: he will fight to the last German taxpayer to keep the Mediterranean countries that should never have joined the euro in there. And now you have of course the Prime Minister of Italy – perhaps we ought to call him Monstrous Mario – who made it clear last week that he feared that nation state democracy could bring down the European Union and therefore we have to by-pass nation state democracy and pass all the powers here.
Your henchman Olli Rehn, who is here today, dares to tell countries when they should and should not have general elections. He is urging Spain to accept a full bailout so that they too are trapped in the euro prison. I have to accept that you now have the whip hand over the citizens of Europe and I now think that this euro crisis will go on for a whole miserable decade.
In the end, you will have to face the reality that even France and Germany cannot survive together in the same economic and monetary union and certainly with President Hollande reducing retirement ages, upping minimum wages and bringing in a hate tax for the successful, which will see all the entrepreneurs leave France, I am afraid that gap will get bigger. I wonder where the hope comes for those who believe in nation state democracy.
We have heard that the German court this morning has decided that the ESM is OK. Maybe the Finns will say they have had enough. Maybe the Germans as a country will say they are no longer going to go on feeling ashamed and guilty for what their grandparents’ generation did and will start to stand up for their own economic interest.
I do not know, but I suspect that the best hope we have actually comes from the United Kingdom, where the demand for a referendum is stronger than it has ever been, where our Conservative Prime Minister is in very deep trouble. I think today, Mr Barroso, the British people hearing you calling for the European Union to become a global power, making it absolutely clear that Member States must obey what you tell them, whether they are in the relatively wealthy north or the poorer south, I think those comments, this emerging, creeping, Euro-dictatorship is something that will repulse millions of British people. The only good news I take from today is that you have helped to bring that referendum just a little bit closer."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples