Brussels, 17/04/2013 (Agence Europe) - The majority of those on the right at the European Parliament are refusing any amendment to the European treaty that would grant the ECB powers to relaunch growth.
MEPs substantially amended the draft report on the ECB's activities for 2011 drafted by Marisa Matias (GUE/NGL, Portugal). They believe that a revision of the treaty that affects the remit of the ECB should exclusively focus on new powers the Frankfurt-based bank is currently acquiring in the area of banking supervision. The draft text did not rule out a more wide-ranging revision of the treaty allowing, for example, the ECB to work more to develop growth in the eurozone. During the debate on Tuesday, the chairman of the ECB, Mario Draghi, said that he was sticking to the current mandate.
Another amendment submitted by Ildiko Gall-Pelcz (EPP, Hungary) includes “the ECB's aim to get member states to ensure the viability of their public finances and proceed to structural reforms”. It removes the passage in the draft report welcoming the ECB's action to “combat excessive lending costs confronting eurozone member states”.
The paragraph in the initial draft calling for information on the substantial “benefits” that the ECB has achieved by buying up €210 billion of the sovereign debt of eurozone countries in difficulty as part of its “SMP” programme was also whittled down (see EUROPE 10793). The amendment passed now only points out that the ECB is little disposed to disclosing more information in this connection.
Denouncing the amendments made by the EPP Group, which cross “several of (its) red lines”, Matias decided to withdraw her name from the report. In a press release she declared: “The debate on the ECB divides us because it is our lives we're talking about... The choice we have to make is simple: do we want an ECB at the service of the economy and society or at the service of financial speculation? The amendments adopted today made clear the path chosen by the majority of MEPs”.
The text maintains some of Matias' initial ideas. The EP supports the introduction of conditionality when granting unlimited liquidity to banking establishments (LTRO operations), particularly with regard to ensuring that this liquidity is not used to buy up public debt but to help finance European SMEs. Ramon Tremosa i Balcells (ALDE, Spain) said: “We don't have a monetary union also if SMEs in some member states have to close because they pay between 4% and 8% more for a loan than similar SMEs in other parts of the euro zone. This difference has become structural”. (MB/transl.fl)