Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-02-19-Speech-4-013"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20090219.3.4-013"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, since this is one of the last chances we will have for doing so, I should like, first of all, to thank Mr Kovács for the efforts, often disappointing, that he has made over a number of years here, in a situation where taxation is subject to the rule of unanimity, and thus subject to veto by the various Member States. His task has been very difficult and he may feel not much has been achieved. I hope with all my heart that his crowning achievement, this directive, will go through with solid support from Parliament.
The proof of the excellence of his work is that, when we wanted to improve on it in the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, we were unable to do so. Some people were pulling in one direction, others in another. Each side was convinced we could do better. We managed to put through some of the better amendments, or so we thought, and then when we voted on the whole text, we realised that it was not going to work.
In the end, the group’s coordinators reached the consensus that Mr Kovács had probably struck the right balance. Therefore, the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, like the other two groups that have just spoken, will not be tabling any amendments. You have struck the right balance and it is an intelligent one.
Some countries, today, faced with the crisis, are reducing all their VAT rates. I am convinced that this is a mistake. Member States need financial resources and this is not the time to go deeper into deficit in that way, even if you are doing so to stimulate the economy by encouraging spending. Another reason is that trying to reduce prices by playing around with VAT leads to very high real rates at a time when the Central Bank is trying to lower them.
You are proposing another strategy and you are right: using VAT to make targeted reductions or targeted changes in relative prices. These are the right choices, according to two criteria.
Firstly, subsidiarity. In other words, you are targeting immobile products: local services and construction. Your second criterion for targeting is labour-intensive services. As environmentalists, we would have liked you to target the green revolution specifically: the sectors that are necessary if we are to emerge from the current crisis, which is the result of the industrial, liberal and productivist model that has dominated the world for more than 30 years.
We would have liked you to extend the reduced VAT rates to all goods covered by the Kyoto Protocol. In practical terms, if we combine locally supplied with labour-intensive services, then this would mean that all the construction, all the insulation, and all the development of energy efficient buildings could be covered in the directive, and that is good enough for us.
I should like to say straightaway that we shall obviously not be voting in favour of Mrs Lulling’s argument. Of course, it is diabolical to persist in error, but I think this saying could equally apply to Mrs Lulling herself. We could also talk about Mandeville and private vice for public virtue. We shall not encourage private vice through public vice and we will defend those countries that try to limit alcohol consumption."@en1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples