Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-12-03-Speech-3-070"
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"en.20031203.7.3-070"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner Solbes, ladies and gentlemen, the decisions taken by the Ecofin Council on 25 November 2003 meant that it was not a good day for Europe. It was not a good day for European law. It was not a good day for the European Monetary Union. It was not a good day for relations between the smaller countries and the larger ones, and it was not a good day for the forthcoming enlargement. Those who, in the nineties, put the case for the Stability and Growth Pact now bear responsibility for the damage done to it, as do those who helped do the damage.
We, in our group, are fundamentally convinced that we cannot be opportunistic in the way we use European law. So long as there is European regulation, so long as there is European law, it must be adhered to rather than bent. We do not believe that the Stability and Growth Pact is dead; it would be wrong to say that it were, for that would enable all those who break it to evade responsibility, both now and in the future. The Stability and Growth Pact has, however, been seriously damaged. Speaking very generally, what we need in politics is trust; Europe’s currency, this young European currency, needs a very special kind of trust, and that trust has been damaged.
To you, Commissioner Solbes, I would like to express our group’s gratitude and appreciation for the way you fought right up to the end. You may well not have got a majority for what you wanted, but we are convinced that you are right. Losing can sometimes be an honourable thing, but you have won your case.
We also give our backing to the European Central Bank, and we wish its President, Mr Trichet, every success in continuing in future to be effective in contending for the stability of the European currency. We have now heard one finance minister in particular coming out with preposterous arguments to justify why this deficit is necessary right now in order for us to achieve growth. This argument is utterly false. Today’s debts are tomorrow’s taxes. What we owe today we will take away from people tomorrow.
Those who run up excessive debts today are behaving exactly like those who are today despoiling our environment, for today’s younger generation and generations yet to come will have to pay the price for it. We therefore demand sustainability not only of a moderate finance and budget policy, but also in environment policy, and these things all belong together. Debts lead to higher interest rates, and these lead to higher inflation. We therefore end up without the money for low-interest loans enabling business and small enterprises to invest, and then no jobs are created for lack of finance at reasonable rates. At the end of the day it will be those on low incomes, it will be what we always used to call the man in the street, who will end up picking up the bill, and so a policy of running up debt is, in essence, anti-social, because it affects most those who have least. Such a policy also damages relations between the countries within the European Union. We have seen how Portugal and Ireland were required to adopt stability measures – quite rightly, as it turned out – and if these countries do it and other countries do it, but some think that they are big enough not to have to take these steps, then the ones who adhere to the criteria end up paying the bill for those who do not. That is why the policy is wrong.
I would appreciate it if you were to listen; I ask you to hear me out."@en1
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