WRITTEN QUESTION E-2255/00 by Theresa Villiers (PPE-DE) to the Council. Action to support the euro.
Date: 2000-07-11
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: euro, exchange-rate mechanism, short-term monetary support

18.4.2001

EN

Official Journal of the European Communities

C 113 E/77

(2001/C 113 E/075)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2255/00

by Theresa Villiers (PPE-DE) to the Council

(11 July 2000)

Subject: Action to support the euro

Following the Ecofin meeting of 8 May 2000, the French Finance Minister, Laurent Fabius, commented
that (cid:145)concrete action(cid:146) could be taken to boost the euro.

It was reported that the Finance Ministers agreed that an (cid:145)instrument of intervention exists, and is
available(cid:146), referring to the reserves of the European System of Central Banks.

Could the Council indicate which instruments could be invoked to support the euro, the circumstances
under which they could be invoked, and who would be responsible for taking such a decision?

Reply

(30 November 2000)

The ultimate behaviour of the euro depends primarily on the trend in the basic parameters of the euro
area economy. The Member States can have a lasting influence on the rate of the European currency by
acting on those foundations. The Member States and the Community have therefore undertaken to take
concrete measures to bolster the credibility of current economic policy with a view to positioning the
economy on a sustained, higher and non-inflationary growth and employment path. The broad economic
policy guidelines for 2000 recently adopted by the Council set forth concrete recommendations specific to
each country. More generally, they called upon Member States participating in the euro to make sustained
efforts to speed up fiscal consolidation and to implement the necessary structural reforms. In that context
the Member States were called upon to achieve budgetary positions close to balance or in surplus more
rapidly than envisaged by the stability and convergence programmes and, as a general rule, in the course
of 2001. With a view to ensuring the efficiency of that policy the Eurogroup would carry out, and if need
be strengthen, continuous monitoring of developments in the budget policies of Member States participat-
ing in the euro.

Direct intervention in the exchange market obviously remains an available instrument for influencing euro
rates which could be used by the ECB. If intervention were to take place, the foreign reserves centralised in
the ECB would be used. The bulk of the ECB(cid:146)s balance sheet assets is made up of those reserves (see the
ECB(cid:146)s 1999 annual report).

At its meeting on 8 May 2000 the Council adopted Regulation (EC) No 1010/2000, enabling the ECB, if
necessary, to call for further foreign reserve assets from the national central banks beyond the limit set in
Article 30(1) of the Statute, up to an amount equivalent to an additional EUR 50 thousand million.

(2001/C 113 E/076)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-2264/00

by Vincenzo Lavarra (PSE) to the Commission

(29 June 2000)

Subject: Right to market table grapes included, and approved for cultivation, in the catalogue of national

varieties in Italy in accordance with Community rules

A number of producers of seedless grapes in southern Italy, and particularly producers of the Sugraone
variety (which has been duly entered and approved for cultivation in the catalogue of national varieties in
Italy) are concerned by the behaviour of certain Community importers who refuse to purchase Sugraone
grapes unless the producer can prove he has paid production royalties to an American company that
claims to have patent rights to the variety in question (although under a different name) that also apply
when the product is marketed.