Brussels, 29/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 29 October, the European Parliament proved unable to adopt a position on its assessment of the 2015 tax year and the European Semester process through which the European level socio-economic policy recommendations are made to the member states.
The draft report by Dariusz Rosati (EPP, Poland) was effectively rejected by a large majority of MEPs (91 votes for, 409 against, 131 abstentions). Further strong divergences emerged at the European Parliament between the EPP and S&D groups on how to conduct socio-economic policies.
The S&D criticised the adoption (304 votes for, 289 against, 43 abstentions) of an amendment on the “budgetary multiplicators”, which the social democrats believe promote austerity policies.
The EPP also questions the amendment from the Italians Marco Valli and Marco Zanni from the EFDD group (325 votes for, 315 against, 7 abstentions). This calls for “a radical shift from austerity policies towards a new sustainable and democratic framework allowing Member States to conduct the economic policies they deem necessary in order to effectively combat unemployment, poverty and socioeconomic inequalities, including through public investments in R&D and innovation and measures in support of small and medium enterprises”.
The draft 'Rosati' report has now been sent back to the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee at the European Parliament. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)