Brussels, 09/11/2010 (Agence Europe) - A joint meeting of MEPs and national parliamentarians ended on Tuesday 9 November with the agreement that MPs and MEPs should work closely together to boost efforts to get Europe out of the current economic and financial crisis (see EUROPE 10252). The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso, said that they had to face very tough challenges and would not succeed unless they worked together, adding that a joint approach to the crisis was possible. During the closing debate issues were raised like reforming economic governance, the role of banks in the wider economy, boosting the internal market and coordinating tax policies.
On the question of economic governance, Barroso tried to reassure various national MPs who fear loss of powers with the creation of the new “European semester” next year (see EUROPE 10209). This new procedure is intended to boost coordination of national economic policies and in the first six months of every year, each member state will submit to the ECOFIN Council and European Commission an outline of its budget for the following year before the national parliament votes on it. The idea of this, explained Barroso, is to increase all stakeholders' capabilities.
The acting president of the Council of the EU, Yves Leterme, said that under the European semester, each country would at the same time submit its stability and growth programme under the Stability and Growth Pact, as well as its national reform programme under the EUROPE 2020 strategy. He said that the public purse had to be used for growth. In this connection, national assemblies would also be able to follow up progress made by their own member state, explained Barroso. Quizzed by French parliamentarian Caresche about the idea mooted by MEP Alain Lamassoure (EPP, France) of convening an informal conference of national budgetary committees, he called for prudence in the face of temptations to set up another mechanism since the decision-making process set out in the treaty can at times be “cumbersome and rather slow”.
The president of the Commission discussed the outcome of the recent European Council that supported the broad outline of the legislative package to reinforce the Stability and Growth Pact unveiled by the Commission in September (see EUROPE 10225). He said a permanent eurozone debt crisis management system was required and the Commission was currently working on the idea. Aware that re-opening the Lisbon Treaty for debate would amount to opening a Pandora's box, he said that a major surgical operation would, however, be carried out on the treaty to establish the crisis management mechanism by 2013. He said that this timing was possible if everybody threw their weight behind it. Such an institutional review has been decided upon despite resistance from a number of member states because of Germany's insistence. Germany fears that its constitutional court would challenge any crisis management mechanism set up with the treaty in its current form (see EUROPE 10247). Barroso said that such a mechanism could not exist without Germany and that was a simply a fact. He did not see Germany's insistence as unreasonable.
Banking. Several participants slammed the attitude of the banking industry, with Lithuanian MP Birute Vesaite saying that the crisis had been caused by the banks and they were now profiting from it! Robert Lugar said that banks were the great winners in the crisis, having made profits of 10% by speculating with the money lent to them by the ECB at a 1% interest rate and that they were supposed to have used to finance the real economy. What is the point of respecting the Stability and Growth Pact if all it does is increase unemployment? - asked Ilda Figueiredo (GUE/NGL, Portugal). In response to these criticisms, Leterme hoped that there would be rapid agreement on introducing a bank tax.
The debate about the type of growth and jobs wanted in tomorrow's Europe highlighted the importance, for the achievement of the EU 2020 strategy, of this strategy having a social dimension and taking the social agenda into account. The social model should be guaranteed and consolidated, as should corporate social responsibility. Youth employment needed to be boosted, as did the employment of over-5o-year-olds, because these groups of the population have considerable potential for companies. The green economy should increase cohesion rather than be a cost burden on companies. Companies and their new needs must be listened to and a balance must be struck between social sustainability and financial sustainability.
Barroso explained that Europeans are afraid of losing their jobs or not being able to find a job. He said that the crisis had been a challenge to EU solidarity but that the challenge had been overcome. Barroso added that people in the EU see the EU 2020 strategy as an inclusive future, a common vision that national governments and the EP must take part in. He said the parliaments were needed to promote the EU 2020 projects and introduce growth-stimulating reforms. This is the right strategy, he said, but new instruments are needed. The EU economy is a social market economy that takes care of the weakest, he explained, and social integration values must not be abandoned. (M.B./G.B./transl.fl)