Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-03-13-Speech-2-025-000"
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"en.20120313.6.2-025-000"2
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"Mr President, I have to say I marvel every time that Mr Barroso and Mr Van Rompuy can keep a straight face when they say that our strategy is starting to work and when they talk about job-creating growth. The strategy that they are pursuing, which is an onslaught on people’s living standards and an onslaught on society in Greece, has resulted in the highest level of unemployment across the EU since the introduction of the euro – 25 million people. It has resulted in a contraction of the eurozone at the end of 2011. They want to institutionalise synchronised austerity right across Europe with their fiscal treaty but, at the same time, they like to talk about growth.
It was Winston in George Orwell’s
who said that freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two makes four. So let me say clearly that trying to meet the structural deficit targets under Article 3 and the debt reduction targets under Article 4 of this treaty equals savage austerity across Europe. It means 5.7 billion euros’ worth of extra cuts and taxes in Ireland; tens of billions of euros across the eurozone. It means, without economic growth, repayment to the bondholders of four and a half billion euros in principal repayments on top of the interest in Ireland; over a hundred billion across the eurozone. It does not mean growth; it means more unemployment; it means a worsening crisis; it means worsening public services and worsening working conditions. Because of this, in Ireland, the government’s only argument in this debate is based on fear. The centrepiece of their scaremongering is the clause which is inserted into the new ESM Treaty which says that only countries that sign up to this permanent austerity can access the ESM funds.
So, Mr Barroso and Mr Van Rompuy, can I ask you a direct question, for which I would like an answer? How did this blackmail clause come to be inserted into the new ESM Treaty? Who proposed this blackmail clause? Did the Irish Government raise any objection to the creation of a stick that is simply there to beat the Irish people with, to try and get us to vote for permanent austerity? Finally, is it not the case that the amendment to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union to allow the ESM to come into being has still not been ratified by the Member States and therefore, if the Irish Government is serious about a fair and free debate without this threat hanging over our heads, it has the power to refuse to ratify and allow this ESM Treaty to come into being – unless the clause is removed?"@en1
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