Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-03-13-Speech-2-022-000"
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"en.20120313.6.2-022-000"2
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"Mr President, I am becoming increasingly concerned that a sort of corrupting complacency is starting to take hold in EU corridors of power. Many seem to now believe that the worst of the crisis is over. After all, we have signed the new treaty to solve it all, and some are implying that Europe is really OK; the only problem is that a few Mediterranean countries have a problem with their public finances and it is nothing that the new treaty cannot put right. Well, Europe is not OK. The underlying economic weakness is a problem shared by the whole of our continent and the new treaty is simply an irrelevance to most of it.
I am pleased to say that two Member States, both from parties led by my group, have been honest enough to say that there is no point in signing this treaty. Others have signed it and have indicated that they do not really believe that it applies to them. Before the ink was even dry on the treaty, Spain and the Netherlands said that they were not going to comply with its provisions.
The European Council has wasted considerable energy on a treaty that will make no practical difference to the fundamentals, whilst taking decisions at the same time that will condemn the Greek people to a generation of poverty. Greece now faces the prospect of one of the longest recessions in recorded history, a collapse in living standards and levels of unemployment unseen in Europe since the 1930s. The solution, of course, is not easy and it is not without cost, but a new course must surely now be followed. Measures are required so that Greece can organise an orderly default, but a default that needs to be complemented by leaving the euro so that devaluation can save its economy in the short term, while structural reforms are taken to rebuild it in the medium term.
But the complacency shown when it comes to the fundamental state of the EU economy is equally profoundly shocking. There was a letter, signed by 12 Heads of Government, from three political families in this House, which was presented to the Council. It was an opportunity to relaunch a constructive growth agenda in Europe, but the initial reaction was very cool, as you know, Mr Van Rompuy. Surely, the time has now come for you to stop behaving as if Council communiqués have been delegated to the foreign ministries of France and Germany. Why did you not immediately face the opportunity to focus on a positive forward-looking agenda for real economic growth? Perhaps, when you asked the Council to put jobs on the agenda, you were, in fact, only referring to yours – congratulations on your reappointment, by the way.
Mr Barroso, should this not be the kind of growth agenda that is the centre piece of the work of your Commission and should define its purpose? Is that not what we were promised? The global competitive challenge requires a determined policy response from the whole Commission, not just from one or two Commissioners who understand what is at stake. Perhaps the Commission should spend a little more time on pursing real reform and a little less time on producing silly, racist, martial arts videos.
I hope that you will also take this opportunity to condemn Sunday’s remarks from the President of France calling for restriction, calling for more protectionism on trade. We should be abolishing trade barriers, not erecting more of them. Apparently, last week, President Sarkozy also said that there are too many foreigners in France. Well, I am a foreigner in France and I say to him that I would be very happy not to have to come back to this Parliament in France every month – and it is his government that actually makes us come here in the first place. There are several hundred foreigners who would be very happy not to come back to France every month if that is really what President Sarkozy wants."@en1
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