Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-10-25-Speech-2-014-000"
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"en.20111025.5.2-014-000"2
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"Madam President, honourable Members, thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you our assessment of this first European Semester and also our plans for the coming year.
The first European Semester has been an important step in strengthening our economic governance. It is part of an effort to rebuild confidence through a clear focus on building the foundations for employment and growth and through stronger policy design and implementation.
We had clear expectations of what a European Semester should mainly achieve in substance. Firstly, we wanted to ensure a closer integration of the policy analysis and guidance across fiscal and macro-economic policies, but also of the policy formulation in Member States. Secondly, we wanted to ensure that the policy guidance given to Member States has a stronger effect on implementation, through a better ex-ante timing of policy guidance and through clearer and more concrete country-specific recommendations. At the same time, the European Semester was supposed to ensure that the EU-level dimension in terms of policy spillovers was taken into account from the start when formulating policies at national level.
Against these expectations, the first European Semester has been successful. We have made significant progress on these key elements. When it comes to assessing the effectiveness of ex-ante policy guidance in terms of the follow-up by Member States, it is a bit too early to tell: we are, after all, only part way through the ‘national semester’. A measurable answer will therefore only be possible when Member States’ budgets and structural reforms have been decided and we have assessed them. I count on this House to play a full part in making this assessment. We will then have to follow up on the implementation and examine what is the impact of the measures taken.
There is a clear recognition on the part of most stakeholders that the policy guidance has become more integrated across policy areas and is more focused on countries’ central priorities. It has also been clearer and more concrete, which should facilitate implementation. With the joint presentation of their SCPs and NRPs, Member States have set out their views on how the key policy challenges should be addressed. The Commission has assessed these policy plans and proposed integrated recommendations based on the broad economic and employment policy guidelines and on the Stability and Growth Pact in terms of legal instruments. The Annual Growth Survey has set the horizontal policy priorities for Member States and ensured that national programmes take account of the EU dimension from the start.
While I consider the European Semester a clear success and an important step forward, there is naturally also scope for improvement. In 2012, the most important aspect is certainly going to be a stronger focus on the growth dimension. As President Barroso outlined here on 12 October, bolstering growth, through full implementation of key reforms on the single market, but also through new and innovative financing instruments such as project bonds, is a central dimension of putting Europe on the course out of the crisis. You will certainly see EU-level action on growth and employment at the heart of the next Annual Growth Survey. The Commission has also decided to advance the presentation of the Annual Growth Survey to late 2011. This should allow for a fuller debate from the outset.
In our democratic societies, reform efforts can only be sustained if they have legitimacy, both in terms of being anchored in the democratic process and carried by the elected representatives of the European citizens as well as in terms of delivering what serves the common good. This means, of course, that this House, as well as national parliaments, will have to play an important role in the European Semester.
A strong link between the EU dimension and the national dimensions of key policy challenges can only be established if these perspectives are brought together through true ownership. This can only be achieved if parliaments have a strong role. I believe that the spring interparliamentary meeting which you organised in 2011 could, if repeated, become an important institutional way of better involving national parliaments to ensure legitimacy. And, of course, the new economic governance legislation underlines the need for national parliaments – and other stakeholders – to be fully involved in the Semester, and in the elaboration of the SCPs and NRPs."@en1
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