Mr President, thank you for your willingness to allow us this pleasure late in the evening. On behalf of the Group of the , I would like to congratulate the rapporteur on his report. We support this report because it gives the right solutions to the issues of the new financial architecture which must be created, of reform as a whole and of crisis management – solutions which also deal practically with the needs of regions hit by crises, the requirements of international financial markets and the very important need of all societies for stability in financial markets. I would like to emphasise again that I believe stability in financial markets to be a public good to which all citizens are entitled. Taking a look at the situation we are in, I cannot resist making an observation. International financial activity on the currency markets has, in fact, decreased to around USD 1 200 billion a day, and that is due to the creation of the monetary union, which is of course one of the levers of the flows of capital that are quantitatively scarcely manageable. At the same time, though, we must note that during the course of the nineties we were dealing with a twenty-five-fold turnover increase in derivative trading such as swaps, options and so on. We know that, now, not even 3% of the transactions have to do with the real market in goods and services. I believe it to be important that we should look at the flow of capital under the influence of globalisation in terms both, on the one hand, of the yield accruing to institutional investors and of the economic and social situation, and on the other, from the point of view of the capital-importing countries. In this connection, we have to bear in mind that 75% of the capital invested flows into only twelve states, and that only 1% of the capital invested flows to black Africa. The rapporteur is right to demand that we now move to a consolidation, and that can only be done if we write off debt more comprehensively than we have done before. Functioning globalised financial markets are no doubt advantageous. Presupposing stable development, they contribute to growth and employment. Despite that, there are still economic and social deficits and a lack of regulation and supervision. The report points that out. Concern about speculative commitments to the detriment of the real economy and the excessive volatility of the market brought about by an enormous increase in transaction volume for certain financial products are factors which make a reform of the international financial architecture more necessary than ever. We have lived through 120 currency crises, and they cannot be abolished. We have not yet succeeded in developing a working system of early warning indicators, in making information transparent and in drawing up a code of conduct that works for everyone, and we have not yet solved the problem of moral hazard. So I consider it very important that this report's demands should influence the EU's negotiations, and the EU, too, must speak with one voice at the international level. It is not just about us having a monetary zone, but we must also speak with one voice internationally on financial market policy and on issues of the world's financial architecture. The introduction of the euro is a contribution to financial stability, and our financial system is better protected against external shocks, but we must move on, for the monetary union is only one contribution to stability in Europe and the world.

Political group: PSE