Brussels, 05/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - The positive role the European Parliament can play in third Greek bailout plan was underlined on Tuesday 5 April, at a conference of the GUE/NGL group criticising the excessive economic austerity imposed by the financial bailout plans in the Eurozone.
The Financial Assistance Working Group of the EP is an “attempt” to increase the democratic legitimacy of the bailout plans at European level, said the President of the 'economic and monetary affairs' committee, Roberto Gualtieri. He said that the recent mission of this working group, in Athens last week (EUROPE 11522), had allowed the MEPs to collect more detailed information than usual on the negotiations underway between Greece and its creditors. “Before, we were just spectators. Now, we don't know everything but we do know a lot more”, he said, even though the EP is not directly involved in the negotiations.
Ernest Urtasun (Greens/EFA, Spain) described the Parliament's working group as a “boon” which will allow the MEPs to criticise the efforts demanded of the Greeks if they find them unreasonable. He called for an in-depth reform of the governance of the Eurozone financial bailout plans in line with the central role of democratic control of the European Parliament.
In the framework of the reflection on the future of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), the functioning of the Eurogroup and certain ECB activities must be reviewed, the Catalan MEP argued. Elisa Ferreira (S&D, Portugal) said that the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact ('2 pack') had allowed modest progress to be made towards increasing the democratic legitimacy of the bailout plans. The European Commission, rather than the technical secretariat, is now in the driving seat of the monitoring missions of the institutional creditors of a country under supervision. Additionally, the role of the social partners, for instance in salary-setting mechanisms, must be preserved, she stressed. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)