Strasbourg, 08/10/2001 (Agence Europe) - After voting through a resolution on the Stability and Growth Pact calling for the greatest possible discipline (see EUROPE of 5 October, p.10), the European Parliament called for the Pact to be respected and reaffirmed that "attempts to loosen the budgetary stance are risky for the international credibility of the whole Euro area" when adopting on Thursday (by 388 to 91 with 15 abstentions) the report by the Dutch Christian Democrat Karla Peijs on the European Commission's Communication on the contribution of public finances to growth and employment. Without mentioning them by name, Parliament's resolution reminds the big eurozone Member States (France, Germany and Italy) that "their budgetary consolidation process is not over" and warns national governments that "even a temporary loosening of the fiscal stance may ruin a decade of painful budgetary adjustments". Parliament calls on the Commission to "pursue its efforts by creating a 'code of conduct' designed to guide national governments… to reach a common understanding of the responsiveness of tax revenues and public spending to variations in each economy's business cycle".
The plenary supported the "general tone" of the Commission's Communication, but regretted that its proposal to "include a paragraph about long-term sustainability of public finances in the stability and convergence programmes (of the Member States) falls short of providing an adequate answer to ageing-related problems" and calls instead on the Council and the Commission to "extend current Stability and Growth Pact requirements by setting new, individual targets for each country, taking into account the level of hidden liabilities implied by an ageing society" and "proposes that such targets should be reached by 2005".
The plenary approved the amendments by the Luxembourg Socialist Robert Goebbels for the PES group calling on Member States to pursue responsible financial policies in order to support a sustainable and continued relaunch of the economy, arguing that it is logical to call for automatic stabilisers to be able to play their part, but with an additional statement demanded by Ms Peijs that this should not be interpreted as a spending licence.