Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-07-11-Speech-3-268"
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I cannot resist the urge to react to the remarks made by Mr Juncker and his evening visitor, by first recommending that he ought not to let himself be taken advantage of by this evening visitor, especially with regard to the nature of the deficits that he is in the process of examining closely in France. That said in passing, these deficits have nothing to do with new investment in research, development and innovation, as the Lisbon Strategy suggests, but are basically due to a EUR 14 billion tax reduction, targeted at the most well-off people in France, a reduction that prompts most economists to wonder about its supposed positive knock-on effect on EU growth. I shall digress no longer.
At present, I should like to thank Mr Mitchell for his report and the work he has done in this regard within the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. This report makes some important progress and advances, not least in terms of transparency in the work and decisions of the European Central Bank and of the democratisation of appointment procedures. This text also calls for more caution regarding a possible rise in interest rates in order not to jeopardise growth; it calls for caution, too, regarding hedge funds, so as to enhance surveillance and regulation in the interests of financial stability and transparency. Finally, we can be pleased with the consensus that the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has been able to reach on the need to invest huge sums in research, education and training.
That being said, I would return to the issue of exchange rates because, contrary to the fatalism and to the prevailing ultra-conservatism, we would like to point out that the instruments with which we can take action do exist. Article 111 of the Treaty merely stipulates that, I quote, ‘in the absence of an exchange-rate system in relation to one or more non-Community currencies (…) the Council, acting by a qualified majority either on a recommendation from the Commission and after consulting the ECB or on a recommendation from the ECB, may formulate general orientations for exchange-rate policy in relation to these currencies'. That is what we are asking you for, Mr Juncker, Mr Trichet and Mr Almunia: general orientations for exchange-rate policy in relation to the currencies of our major partners and competitors, rather than a general laissez-faire policy and not very credible declarations on the lack of economic impact of a largely over-valued euro.
Finally, I should like to say a few words about an issue on which there is major disagreement between the two sides of this House: wage policy. Like you, Mr Juncker, we note that the share of wages in the GDP of the Eurozone keeps on falling and that, at the same time, the wages, golden parachutes and other stock options of the directors and managers of large companies are a real provocation for European workers, whose purchasing power is weakening.
Like you, Mr Almunia, we are calling for a legal minimum wage in every EU country or at least in the Eurozone. Encouraging the social partners to agree on significant wage increases, as the social partners of Germany’s metallurgical industry have done, means not only aiming for a better distribution of the fruits of growth, but also, in our view, helping to perpetuate growth by giving households more confidence and by increasing consumption."@en1
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