Brussels, 31/03/2009 (Agence Europe) - “The economic situation in the eurozone keeps on deteriorating,” said Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker on Tuesday 31 March. While there will be moderate recovery in 2010 and 2011, “we will have to deal with the consequences (of the crisis) for a while”, he told the EP economic and financial affairs committee, where he enlarged on a number of points which cause debate.
European recovery plans sufficient. “I sincerely believe that there is no need to increase the scale of our recovery plans” without having previously assessed the effect of current measures. “We made ourselves ridiculous” on the €5 billion issue (the European budget is also “ridiculously small”), but “the measures taken by the various member states are remarkable”. While “coordination is not as good as it might be”, he could not see any flagrant contradictions among the various state plans. At any rate, “the same thing cannot be done everywhere”, but if all that has been done is added together, “you get 23% of GDP” (compared with roughly 29% in the United States, according to Jean-Claude Trichet).
Jobs troika disappointing. Juncker said he was disappointed by the decision to make the summit for jobs into a meeting of the troika and the social partners. Some member states did not want a summit but “I regret the decision,” he said, indicating his intention to attend the meeting. “I also had concerns about what the Social Summit could achieve,” because, without tangible results, “the whole thing would have been disastrous”. However, once the idea had been launched, he would have preferred not to see the meeting downgraded with the consequent mixing of messages to citizens.
Call for consistency towards uncooperative jurisdictions. “I would like the big men in Europe, the ones who demanded that three member states (Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg: Ed.) give up their banking secrecy, show the same level of courage with the United States,” railed the Luxembourg prime minister. He said that “81 financial centres” around the world fall into this category. “If there has to be a list, America must be on it” (in particular, certain states such as Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada). “By 3 April, we will know if all this was done to impress the people or to find a solution to a real problem that exists,” he said, ahead of the G20. (A.B./transl.rt)