Brussels, 09/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - Following discussions with the likely next president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, the leaders of the EPP, Manfred Weber and Joseph Daul, on Wednesday 9 July stressed the importance of maintaining the current rules of the stability and growth pact.
The president of the EPP group at the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, said that he firmly believed that Juncker is well aware of “how important stability is within the EU”, including with regard the stability and growth pact. Within the Eurogroup, many finance ministers belonging to the Socialist family supported the procedures of the troika and the programmes in the countries in difficulty, Weber pointed out, adding that it is for this reason that calls for more flexibility from certain Socialist governments had come as such a surprise to him. Daul, the president of the EPP party, supported more flexibility, for example, regarding the aid of €6 billion for youth unemployment or structural aid (to promote employment and growth). “However, we have to keep the rules, if we change the rules on flexibility, we will go to the wall”, Daul warned. He went on to highlight the problem of competitiveness which exists in Europe and to call for greater tax and social harmonisation.
Daul reiterated that “we put our candidate in place democratically. On Tuesday, he will be elected. However, we talked about how to speed up economic growth and job creation”. Daul is convinced that Juncker “will have a maximum of votes, a great majority” of the European Parliament next Tuesday, when his appointment to the position of president of the European Commission is made official (EUROPE will return to this). (LC)