Brussels, 21/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament's EPP-ED group has given a hostile welcome to the results from the work of the EU finance ministers' work on making the Stability and Growth Pact more flexible (see above). CDU/CSU MEPs (in opposition in Germany) again demonstrated their opposition with Hans Pöttering, president of the group, leading them. The CDU MEP said in a press release that there was a regrettable withdrawal from monetary stability and a victory of big countries over small ones, particularly in relation to Germany. However, Pöttering recognised that Jean-Claude Juncker had asked for the pact ceilings to be kept (for the deficit and debt). According to him the future of the pact depended on whether the Commission could fully play its role in the excessive debt procedure and if it were governments that decided, the pact would lose substance. Bavarian CSU MEPs Markus Ferber and Alexander Radwan were the most outspoken. German finance minister Hans Eichel would go down in history as the “gravedigger of the pact”, declared Radwan in a press release. He also criticised the fact that Poland and Hungary had obtained concession on the evaluation of their pension reforms. Ferber said that the pact was just a “paper tiger” and that it was clear that other Member States were awaiting concessions from Germany on financial perspectives in exchange for this result, which meant, he protested, Germany would pay twice to the detriment of future generations.