Strasbourg, 11/09/2013 (Agence Europe) - The president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, described as “lively” the debate on the state of Union, following an up-beat, though not overly so, speech by the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, in Strasbourg on Wednesday 11 September.
In his view, the differences of opinion on Europe expressed during the discussions will continue during the European election campaign next year. The election debates should focus on the way in which the EU works and not on whether European construction should continue or not, he said.
Schulz gave his impressions to the press following the speech by Barroso and highlighted the relative consensus on the “big problem” of youth unemployment, “despite economic recovery being present in the background”.
Overall, he perceived the speech as “optimistic on certain parts and less so on others”, particularly with regard to the involvement of member states at the Council. He shares this feeling and politely regretted that the “usual suspects” were blocking any decisions being made. He also rejected the accusation that the EU did not have any common ambition when “governments are carrying out a national policy of blaming the EU for their difficulties… This is a way of tarnishing the image of the Union”.
According to Schulz, the plenary debate that followed Barroso's speech illustrates the confrontation between two schools of thought, “that we will see everywhere again” during the election campaign. This pits those who believe that they need to clean up public finance to attract investors, against those who believe that good budgetary housekeeping is not possible without generating income and who advocate recovery through public investment and tackling unemployment. Schulz said that, if this debate were transparent, the support of voters would be won back and warned against the trap of simply posing the question of a yes or no to Europe. He asserted that “we need to lead the debate about how the EU should function”.
Schulz said that he would not seek to be the candidate on behalf of the Social Democrats for the presidency of the European Commission and explained that there were so many things to do in his current role before he could think about his future.
On the other hand, he was unwilling to criticise the current president of the Commission at the end of its mandate. A mutual respect seems now to be the norm between the two presidents after having previously been “two irreconcilable enemies”, according to Schulz. Although they are both from different political camps, they share the same concern about European integration being about “protecting our people in the 21st century, which looks like it is going to be an increasingly difficult period”. (MD/transl.fl)