Brussels, 15/03/2013 (Agence Europe) - The president of the European Parliament (EP), Martin Schulz, took an aggressive tone in his address to the 27 EU heads of state and/or government at the opening of the European Summit in Brussels on Thursday 14 March 2013. He stated that two million jobs had been lost in the European Union over the past year, poverty was spreading and youth unemployment rising, but: “When I look at the agenda for this year's Spring Summit, I see few proposals for straightforward solutions to the real problems facing ordinary people. Instead, my eye falls on a whole series of lexical aberrations, such as 'ex ante coordination' and 'individual contractual arrangements' ... the European Semester” and more besides. Schultz went on: “Faced with all this empty technocratic jargon, how can we expect anyone to feel that their actual problems and concerns are being addressed? If we don't want to see more and more people turning their backs on the idea of Europe, then we must make policy in a way that people can understand”, arguing that it was due to hard work by the EP that agreement had been reached over the past few days that a cap would be put on bank bonuses.
Schulz said “deepening the recession by dogmatically implementing austerity policies makes no economic sense whatsoever”, pointing out that the EP feels that “budgetary consolidation must go hand in hand with investment to stimulate growth. We all know that, without growth, there can be no strong economy; that, without a strong economy, there can be no new jobs; and that, without new jobs, there can be no increase in government tax revenues”. He told Europe's leaders: “I would therefore urge you to take a hard look at what you have done and tell us precisely which of the measures included in the Growth and Employment Pact, with its budget of €120 billion, you have already implemented. It may be that the measures in question have already been taken at national level; if that is so, then they have gone largely unnoticed by the general public and the European Parliament”.
He warned the heads of state and/or government of the danger of ignoring the Italian election results, stating: “To be sure, budgets need to be consolidated, but not enough is being done to alleviate the social hardship which our budgetary consolidation measures are causing”. Talking about economic and monetary union, Schulz, a German Social Democrat, said the European Parliament had called for greater democratic legitimacy and the adding of a Social Pact to economic and monetary union. “The purpose of a social pact of this kind would be to ensure that, alongside budgetary discipline, employment levels and respect for basic social values were the yardsticks used to measure member states' performance. The European Parliament regards youth employment, high-quality public services, wages which offer people a decent livelihood, access to affordable housing, basic welfare provision and access to basic health services, protection of fundamental social and employment rights and equal pay and equal rights for equal work as key social criteria”. He expressed the EP's “very real fear that the debates on Treaty amendments and constitutional conventions, however important they may be, will blind us to the fact that we must use the provisions of the existing Treaties to overcome the current crisis. (...) It would certainly be desirable, but does it make sense to schedule negotiations on a revision of the Treaties for a period during which a member state is planning to hold a referendum on the issue of whether or not it should leave the EU?'
Schulz pointed out: “Almost all the changes required could be made on the basis of the existing Treaties”, reminding Europe's leaders that: “For some years now, you have been taking an increasing number of legislative decisions at your level, the level of the heads of government, and thus effectively reintroducing the unanimity principle. At the same time, the welter of new terms and acronyms is becoming ever more bewildering, with the result that more and more people are turning away from the EU”. (LC/transl.fl)