Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-02-15-Speech-3-014-000"
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"en.20120215.4.3-014-000"2
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"Mr President, as Mr Wammen has just said, the Spring European Council meeting is traditionally the European Union’s rendezvous with social and economic reality in Europe. However, we have all heard that the finance ministers yesterday cancelled their meeting in Brussels at which they intended to approve the second aid package for Greece. What does that mean? What does it mean for Greece and for Europe?
I believe that our common goal is to keep Greece in the euro area and I would like to respond to Mr Daul on this subject. I do not agree with what Ms Kroes has said about Greece remaining in the euro area, but the reason why she has said it and why so many people are so impatient, is the behaviour of her sister party, Nea Dimokratia, in particular. If they could just call Mr Samaras to order, it would be very helpful. I believe it would be better for all of us.
We want Greece to stay in the euro area, but it is important to make one thing clear. In the past, the Greek Government has made a lot of promises, but has delivered very little. The introduction of another austerity package does not by any means indicate that what is being promised will actually be put into practice, and that is exactly what this is all about. It is about structural reform, which will lead to further aid being made available. If it takes the right course, Greece can count on our support. However, we no longer need preliminary work; instead, we are looking for action.
It has been said here that the situation in Greece is genuinely dramatic. In addition to the savings which are needed, Mr Swoboda, from 1991 to 2007, in other words, before the crisis, Greece had an average annual national deficit of 6.6%. Greece is now having to pay the bill for its poor policies in the past. Of course, we do not envy the Greeks. That is absolutely clear. We want to get the country and the economy going again and the trade unions will be an important part of this. Trade unions have played a constructive role in increasing competitiveness in Germany over many years.
Economic performance has fallen by 7% over the last three months. This is why we now need genuine structural reforms, in other words, a tax reform which is worthy of the name. Progress must be made with privatisation in important sectors such as energy generation, ports and lotteries, every area where the state is too heavily involved. The proposed cuts in the bloated civil service are also needed. Parts of the Greek political system have been based on this. People simply found positions for their supporters in a ministry, a public authority or a public company. In other words, the state sector is completely bloated.
I would like to remind everyone in this context that it was the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe which called for a sort of Marshall Plan some time ago. We call it the Hercules Plan and we will be happy to work on it. However, after the last Council meeting, our group also made three very specific proposals for measures to promote growth and create jobs. These proposals are addressed to the Council: the implementation of the European patent, the deployment of unused funding from the European Union budget and a plan to reduce the risk of infection within Europe. We want a debt redemption pact for the whole of Europe. We expect the Council finally to tackle this problem."@en1
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