Mr President, last week, in plenary session here in this House, I enquired after Wim Duisenberg’s opinion and commitment regarding the macroeconomic dialogue which is about to kick off in the next couple of days. His reply was courteous and obliging, albeit rather reserved. He said that the exchange of information is fine, as long as absolutely no coordination of policy takes place beforehand. This reserve, which is somewhat exaggerated to my mind, is also something that can be detected in the other partners in the dialogue. If the leaders, the majority of whom are men, are in the least ambitious, then there will certainly be a healthy dose of scepticism at grass-roots level. This is also true of the circles I come from, the trade unions. There too, there is a rather sceptical attitude towards involving the government and central banks in wage development. I think this is a serious case of getting cold feet. Surely, there is a whole world of possibilities between preliminary policy coordination on the one hand and complete non-commitment on the other. This world is what we refer to in the Netherlands as the “consultation system”, a set-up of frequent and reasonably structured consultations between the main socio-economic operators. This is a joint framework of analysis where attempts are made to come up with solutions to shared problems. A key element of this process is the organisation and guarantee of trust, as well as commitment among the respective grass roots. The latter is essential but cannot be brought about overnight of course. It is a world which is yet to be conquered at EU level. In my opinion, this is one of the great challenges of this post-EMU era. This is why I regret that at the start of the process, parties are threatening to hide behind the interests of their own autonomy on their own patch of authority: the government with respect to their budgetary policy, the two sides of industry with regard to wage negotiations and the European Central Bank with regard to monetary policy. The very presence of this autonomy could make the dialogue so interesting. I am also among those, as is Stephen Hughes, who would have liked to participate in last Friday’s meeting and who have had discussions with the European Central Bank on this rise in interest rates. I am convinced that various colleagues here in this House would have made a brilliant contribution to this debate. Whether this means that we could have made Mr Duisenberg change his mind is a different matter but this could perhaps be a goal for the future. Also, I would like to take part in this coming Monday’s political debate on the effects of this rise in interest rates, which will probably be implemented soon after, and by that I do not just mean the effects on the current financial rates but also on the real economy. There is a strong wish in Parliament to bring this about. I feel we should not only focus on this but in particular that we should also endeavour, together with our colleagues in the national parliaments, to enter into this debate with our government representatives and the European Commission. This is why it is so beneficial to have this debate now. I do hope that there is no question but that this will be carried through at heads of government level and I feel optimistic about Prodi’s initiatives in this direction.

Political group: PSE