Brussels, 16/05/2014 (Agence Europe) - The Liberal candidate to be the next president of the European Commission, Guy Verhofstadt (of Belgium), is calling for “an alternative approach” to policy in Europe after the EU statistical office, Eurostat, published mixed figures for economic growth in Europe in the first quarter of 2014 (see EUROPE 11080).
Verhofstadt, a former prime minister of Belgium, said the official figures show “that the crisis is not over and that a new approach is urgently needed. The eurozone experienced a very weak overall growth of just 0.2 % in the first three months of the year. Full recovery still seems years away”. He said that the weak growth in the eurozone, which led to an increase in the yield on eurozone peripheral country debt on Thursday, “is a warning sign that we are entering a period of economic stagnation that can only be overcome by a new approach”.
Verhofstadt recommends a three-pronged approach: - speeding up the restructuring and recapitalisation of banks to end the credit crunch; - the launch of a “new ambitions package of legislation to integrate and unite our markets in key areas such as energy, telecoms, digital affairs, banks and financial services”; - “the introduction on a massive scale of 'future bonds' by which private savings are used to finance new infrastructure in the fields of transport, energy and the internet”.
“Creating new debt in our member states, as the socialists are proposing, is certainly not the way out. But the new data suggest that fiscal discipline alone is not enough and that we need also a new growth pact. Such a pact has to be of the same magnitude as the package Jacques Delors launched in the 1980s”, argued Verhofstadt. (MB)