Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-03-09-Speech-3-158"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050309.15.3-158"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, Madam Vice-President, on the issue of the Stability and Growth Pact, our group unequivocally backs the efforts of the Luxembourg Presidency and, in particular, supports the idea of a list of relevant factors, as indicated by Mr Juncker. I believe we need to make progress towards greater differentiation of the national economies, particularly by reference to their debt levels and the demands placed on them. Therefore, we agree on an explicit list of factors which – to borrow Mr Prodi’s expression – would render a political and more intelligent assessment of the Stability Pact possible.
Having said that, reform of the pact still falls short of a European coordination of budgetary policy – Mrs de Sarnez just referred to this. On this point, I would say to the Council that the statement I read after the ECOFIN Council, in particular to the effect that an agreement reached within the euro zone by the 12 Member States would not necessarily be ratified by all members of the Council, namely by all 25 Member States, constitutes, in my view, an extremely worrying signal from a political standpoint.
From this point of view, the triangle to which Mr Juncker referred at the start of the Luxembourg Presidency when discussing the Lisbon strategy, the Stability Pact and the financial perspective, makes a lot of sense. I believe that interpretation of the Stability Pact should echo the readiness of Member States to make extra budgetary efforts in order to obtain a financial perspective and a European Union budget fit for purpose and able to deliver the objectives we should like it to achieve.
From this point of view, the political timing is not particularly good, since we are asking the spring meeting of the European Council to reach agreement on Lisbon and on the Stability Pact, while possibly postponing the debate on the financial perspective until June. However, I believe that this danger of a rift between the new Member States, in particular, and the old Member States is a political risk which should not be underestimated in this whole debate.
Finally, with regard to sustainable development, I am quite surprised by, let us call it, the superficiality of the proposition. The European Commission has issued a report on the Community strategy for sustainable development which therefore concerns the Union’s sectoral policies. This report is highly critical. It is honest enough to be extremely critical. Therefore, if the major political impetus which Mr Barroso is expecting and which we, too, are hoping for from the Council consists merely of saying, ‘we plan to draw up a European chart of indicators’ – we would say: is that all? All you need to do is to look at the European Environment Agency’s reports and you will have your indicators.
We are expecting a great deal more; we are expecting much more restrictive targets to be set in the areas of transport policy, energy policy and the Kyoto commitments. It is no longer enough to keep going back to the question of the indicators saying, in the morning, ‘we want fewer indicators’’, and in the afternoon, ‘we want more’. What exactly do we want? We want successful policies and we want the Commission and Council to abide seriously by the Gothenburg commitments."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples