On Wednesday 14 May, the MEPs, meeting in plenary, broadly approved (544 votes to 141 and two abstentions) the consensual own-initiative report by Hugues Bayet (S&D, Belgium) on the 'Annual growth review' document, which kicks off the European semester budgetary process.
This text, which received a convincing majority at the European Parliament's economic and financial affairs committee on 21 February (see EUROPE 11967), seeks to strike a balance between those in favour of compliance with the budgetary rules, mostly on the Right, and the proponents of socially and ecologically sustainable reforms, mostly on the Left.
Although the own-initiative report takes position in favour of deepening economic and monetary union (EMU), it stresses that the role of the European Parliament and the national parliaments should be reinforced in this framework.
The outcome of the vote was never in doubt, due to the various compromises reached in the parliamentary committee. However, the Greens/EFA Group tabled several amendments, most of which were rejected by the MEPs. One of its amendments, calling upon the Commission to set mechanisms in place to fight corruption, was adopted.
“The message is clear: the European Parliament wants to steer a new socio-economics course (…)! It is vital that our socio-economic instruments serve the cause of the citizens and their jobs”, Bayet said after the vote. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)