Brussels, 17/09/2014 (Agence Europe) - At a plenary session debate on Wednesday 17 September, several MEPs criticised the Italian Presidency of the Council of the EU and the European Commission for having failed to make any announcements or reported back on preparations for the Eurozone summit of October.
“You have come empty-handed”, said Dimitrios Papadimoulis (GUE/NGL, Greece). He reproached the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Benedetto Della Vedova, for not “even being able to say what the date of the Eurozone summit will be” and the Commissioner for the Euro, Jyrki Katainen, for having remained silent on the investment plan of €300 billion over three years to be presented by the next Commission within three months of its inauguration (see EUROPE 11100). “There isn't even a date for the next Summit!” added Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, Germany). Othmar Karas (EPP, Austria) said that he was “shocked by this lack of preparation”.
Explaining that a more substantial debate would be possible the next plenary session, Della Vedova argued in favour of continuing the reforms in the member states and bringing public finances back to a sustainable level. On the previous day, the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, presented the Italian Parliament with the “1,000 days” programme, which its government plans to apply, in order to give a shot in the arm to growth in Italy, with the OECD forecasting that the country will slip back into recession in 2014.
The Commissioner for the euro, Jyrki Katainen, reiterated the building blocks of the socio-economic policy to be applied: - support for investment, both public and private and at national and European levels, in innovative sectors and research; - speeding up the structural reforms, in terms both of supply and demand, whilst safeguarding the most vulnerable sections of society; - improving the quality of public finance cleansing, the average pace of which has dropped off in recent years, with particular attention to cutting public expenditure and reducing taxation on employment.
On Wednesday, the French news agency AFP announced the postponement of a Commission summit on employment and growth, with no new date fixed. EUROPE has heard that this summit is proposed for 8 October in Milan, and confirmation is awaited from the office of the Italian prime minister.
All of the political groups with the exception of the EPP argued in favour of another policy. Given extremely low growth levels, the risk of deflation and excessive unemployment and poverty, we need to change policy because “the solutions put forward by the Commission are not working”, stressed Maria João Rodrigues (S&D, Portugal), not refuting the need to reform the employment markets. The president of the committee on economic and monetary affairs, Roberto Gualtieri (S&D, Italy), welcomed the fact that Katainen acknowledges the need for investments. Speaking on behalf of the Greens/EFA group, Belgium's Philippe Lamberts also argued the case for reforms, but not those called for by Kaitainen, which “affect the most vulnerable rather than the wealthiest”. We need “binding” targets to ensure that businesses invest in favour of a “low-energy Europe”, but this will not happen as long as the “casino economy” and cheap credit drive real estate bubbles, he said. Marco Valli (EFD, Italy) criticised the fact that banks are not obliged to lend to the real economy (our translation throughout). (MB)