Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-19-Speech-3-010"
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, Europe has finally reacted. The Heads of State or Government have finally begun to deal with the problems by deciding, 10 days ago, on a support plan for our currency, the euro. This is a plan which accurately reflects the scale of European solidarity, thus contradicting all those who doubted it, but which is still inadequate and must be accompanied by measures to reduce our national budget deficits and measures for obtaining agreement among the 27 on the social and fiscal budgets. I think everybody is saying this this morning, and we have all been saying the same thing for the past fortnight. Well let us do it now! This plan was completed last Wednesday with the Commission’s decision, which I welcome, to radically enhance supervision and the implementation of a stability pact.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will not extricate ourselves unless all these measures are implemented. We will not extricate ourselves unless we have political courage, because the measures that we should have already taken collectively at EU level and individually at national level will have to be taken now. This applies to both right-wing and left-wing governments. I am very sorry that the German socialists were lacking this courage when they voted in the Bundestag on the European aid plan.
We must learn lessons from all this. The first lesson: we must know the true state of national public accounts, just as we know the true state of EU public accounts. I am asking the Commission to strive to ensure this and to punish, and not just timidly criticise, any State which fails to meet this obligation. As you well know, everybody is afraid of the speed trap, everybody is afraid of the penalties, of the number of points on their licences when they are on the road. This is how we are made, so there have to be penalties. This is the alpha and the omega of any serious policy in this area.
Second lesson: the 27 must concentrate on their budgetary policies very early on in proceedings. The Commission asked for this last week. I myself asked for it in this Chamber a few weeks ago. I know that it irritates Member States when we ask them to concentrate, but they must get used to being irritated from now on if they continue to treat their public finances as if they were living on a desert island, as if they were not connected to one another by a currency and, hence, by a necessary common discipline.
Moreover, what is true of national budgets is also true of social and fiscal policy. Once again, I understand the anger of some of our compatriots when they are asked to make sacrifices for others who work less and retire earlier. This cannot continue either. That is the third lesson which I have learnt from this crisis. The euro will only be viable if we collectively give ourselves the resources to make it so. I would not contradict President Obama’s financial adviser, Mr Volcker, who said that the euro is liable to collapse if we do not change our culture and behaviour. We must look beyond national considerations and towards European considerations. We must move on from short-term policies, designed to prevent our national governments from falling a few points in opinion polls, to medium- and long-term plans, which are also being demanded by our entrepreneurs so that they can invest and recruit.
My group is asking Europe to wake up. It is asking for the Commission to do its job, which is to apply the carrot and the stick technique with Member States. Financially reward the ones that clean up their public finances and punish the ones that refuse to do so!
The Commission, Mr Rehn, must not be afraid of doing this. It would be to the benefit of Europeans and of Member States. The main problem amongst our fellow citizens, which is raised at all our meetings at the moment, is whether their savings are still safe. I understand these citizens, who have worked all their lives to have a few savings. So that is the first assurance we should give them: that their savings are protected. That is quite simply what the Commission must do; it was created for that purpose.
It is only in this context, ladies and gentlemen, that the 2020 strategy will have any meaning. It is only if we are once again serious of purpose, if we act collectively with regard to public accounts, that we will be able to win the battle of unemployment, education, training, research and innovation. I said this yesterday, and I say it every day: if savings have to be made in all our Member States, then we too, as Members of Parliament and European civil servants, will have to lead by example, or else we will lack credibility.
That is all that I have to say, and I am still hoping – I have experienced a few very serious and very deep crises – that this crisis can at least serve as a new starting point for Europe and its citizens."@en1
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