kfajdsl/voxpopuli huggingface dataset:
and yet we continue to churn out more and more laws as if our economy could cope and somehow we did not have twenty six million unemployed.
to quote one passage what we need now is to take decisions on the next steps forward rather than let ourselves be distracted by utopian goals'.
however many of the eu's economic problems stem from the fork in the road that we took back in the jacques delors days.
we know from the remarks of your socialist finance minister that she certainly does not.
twenty five years on margaret thatcher's speech still shows the way forward.
mr stubb at the time effused there are not too many federalists out there. there are many closet federalists but not any real federalists any more'.
but if we learn anything from margaret thatcher's life it is that change is possible only if you are willing to fight for it.
we rushed into the project without thinking through the economic consequences.
prime minister with the help of your government the council has set out in my view a much more realistic path with a reformed and reduced european budget.
support for the euro of course is still strong in finland.
surely it is about time we tried a different course.
mr president let me first of all join with the sentiments that others have expressed and send my sympathies and condolences to our american friends on the terrible events in boston yesterday.
i only hope you manage to convince some of your ppe colleagues of this wise course of action some of whom it seems want to spend even more money than the socialists sometimes.
until we do our attention will never be focused on the real challenge of europe which is to maintain our competitiveness in a difficult and challenging world.
but do the finnish people really want to see their taxpayers' money flowing to other parts of the currency union?
and yet even today many focus on the abstract utopian concept of somehow completing the european project.
at least we do not have to hear from the greens which is a good thing.
you are also to be congratulated on your opposition to the crazy policy of a financial transaction tax. well done.
former commissioner bolkestein who i think is from your political family mr verhofstadt put it very well last week when he said that the euro turned out to be a sleeping pill which made europe doze off instead of considering and thinking about its competitiveness.
yes of course the debt crisis was the trigger but the euro was a fortress built on sand.
jacques delors himself said that the euro could not exist without the counterpart of a european government and the agenda was quite clear even then.
the final cost of this utopian project will be enormous for many countries and particularly for yours prime minister because we all know how unpopular the bailouts are.
i wonder what happened to him.
outside this building there is in my view a real desire for change for the eu to focus on building a stronger economy on reforming its policies for the twenty first century and on decentralising power.
i bet he never repeats that in finland now.
looking back on it now it is striking how relevant it actually is to the events of today.
it was einstein who said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and somehow expecting it to turn out differently.
that is the solution that we need for europe.
utopia never comes because we know that we would not like it if it did.
we moved in the eu away from competition and the open markets that margaret thatcher championed and towards harmonisation and over regulation. former commissioner verheugen i think from the socialist group estimated that eu regulation costs european business eur six hundred billion which is four times the gdp of finland.
we need to be honest with people about what membership of the euro is going to cost in the long term and we need to take the very difficult decisions that are required.
let us not keep repeating the same mistakes of the past and instead let us take europe in a new direction.
i am saying it because there is proof of this.
in my opinion what they are calling for is not an alternative for germany.
what are the figures in that study?
a party who want germany out of the euro.
sufficient and credible information otherwise we do not know where we are.
and once again we need information about our real situation.
are we going to bicker about available money or make serious efforts to generate more money through reforms?
while populists in different countries repeat their eu one liners we in the european people's party have been focusing on steering europe's economy towards growth and coming up with serious solutions to serious problems. as was said by chairman daul at last week's epp bureau meeting in croatia our logic has been to focus on the economy in order to be able to create social policy;
to focus on growth in order to be able to create jobs.
deepening the internal market is not a particularly sexy topic but it is the area of integration that is the most likely to show inside the wallets of european citizens.
the field with possibly the greatest potential for growth and job creation is our common digital market of which finland has been a great champion.
i would like to pay my compliments to our government for this.
europe wide much has been done but the pace of digital market integration has not been as fast as desired.
all the institutions but especially the member states are responsible for this.
i am currently our group's shadow rapporteur on the proposed directive on collective management of copyright and after numerous discussions with stakeholders i would like to raise a couple of concerns.
the creative industries play a great role in the creation of growth and jobs and therefore we should promote the position and role of content providers i.
it does not have a democratic mandate.
as our vehicle to give hope to give stimulus.
we do not just need stability we need stimulus and it is time to turn to stimulus. the stability situation seems to me to be well in control.
we need stimulus. the european investment bank could be the vehicle for that.
that is a danger.
for what. i think we should
stop that. the commission is responsible for
there is no money? we produced a study from an independent institution and fortunately the commission
project for europe. when the media started to take up the issue and published many of these things even mr cameron said that it is time to wake up and
fair integration. it is not fair that many of the rich can take their money out into tax havens while the poor
the european council. they have much more interest and engagement and hopefully much
but now spain a far larger economy is having to bail out its own banks.
whether the money comes from the eu or from national treasuries the story remains the same.
the people who are now suffering from severe belt tightening will be the ones who end up paying for the wrong decisions made by private companies.
greece is under the water and ireland and portugal are not far behind.
bailing out such banks without investigating how and where the money has gone is an act of irresponsibility and contempt towards european citizens.
moreover the authors of the new treaty explicitly required that certain provisions of the treaty should be achieved through the eu's normal secondary legislation. they welcomed these specific legislative proposals and clearly saw them as an essential supplement to the treaty itself. and of course the authors
it agreed its mandate to negotiate on these texts within weeks of the signature of the treaty in february. as a former member of this house i understand and deeply respect the principles of democratic scrutiny which means that this house cannot always be as agile as the council. but i think and i say this with
and once again this commission and this parliament have a special and joint responsibility a unique responsibility to prove that the community method can be and will be at the centre of the next chapter in the making of europe.
if the treaty enters into force before this two pack we will be confronted with very difficult legal challenges. what concerns me most is the political signal that such a scenario would send no legal acrobatics would enable us to hide the fact that we had failed to live up to our political responsibilities
and the eu treaties is done correctly and will set a positive precedent for the future.
so we are yet again witnessing a potentially defining moment for europe's deeper integration.
at the summit later this month as president barroso will explain in more detail tomorrow the heads of state or government will discuss the next phase of deepening the economic union.
these proposals submitted to you on twenty three november by the commission decisively informed and shaped the subsequent discussions that led to the new fiscal compact treaty.
that means when talking about the prospect of a fiscal union that more mutualisation of sovereign risk necessarily requires more fiscal integration before it can be acceptable to all.
with this thorough restructuring of the banking sector in spain together with the ongoing determined implementation of structural reforms and fiscal consolidation spain can gradually regain confidence
in other words any step in the further sharing of risk can only be taken on the condition that it is balanced by provisions to avoid free riding on the consolidation efforts of other member states.
with the necessary assessment on the ground in close alliance with the european central bank the european banking authority and the international monetary fund and subsequently to propose appropriate conditionality for the financial sector
and create the conditions for a return to sustainable growth and job creation.
in that context our guiding principle should be that in order to move to further mutualisation it is necessary in parallel to further strengthen our stability culture.
the proposed regulation on common provisions for monitoring and assessing draft budgetary plans and ensuring the correction of excessive deficits of the member states in the euro area will require these countries to present their draft budgetary plans which will enable the commission to assess whether the budgetary plans are in accordance with budgetary objectives. the regulation also proposes closer monitoring and reporting requirements for euro area countries in an excessive deficit procedure.
the two proposals will make an important contribution to further strengthening of the economic governance framework within the euro area and we are ready to start a trialogue as soon as parliament is ready.
the general approach of the council is to close the original proposals of the commission which we believe to be an important contribution to ensuring sound and sustainable public finance in the euro area and thereby also to growth and employment with those two things being two sides of the same coin. the proposed regulation on the strengthening of economic and budgetary surveillance of member
however i would like to recall and i should of course do that very briefly the context in which we are discussing these two proposals.
we have strengthened financial supervision through a european systemic risk board and strengthened the role of the european supervisory authorities.
however it is clear that further work is required.
we have agreed or are in the process of agreeing on a number of financial regulation files including new capital requirements of banks rules on markets for financial derivatives rules on short selling and credit default swaps hedge funds and credit rating agencies.
i can assure you of the danish presidency's commitment to this dossier.
two thousand and ten but having said that i still think it is important to realise that much has been achieved.
and created a new macroeconomic imbalances procedure.
we have set up rescue mechanisms such as the efsm the efs and the esm and used these facilities to support vulnerable member states.
and i therefore have strong hopes that following your debate today and your vote tomorrow we can make rapid progress towards reaching an overall agreement.
i also know that as we are almost at the end of our presidency term the incoming cyprus presidency is equally determined to adopt these proposals as quickly as possible.
finally and hand in hand with our efforts on stronger economic governance and financial regulation we are working on promoting stronger growth and job creation with this being done through reforms initiatives at both national level and european level.
we are all only too well aware of the persistent financial and economic crisis which continues to impact across europe and also beyond european borders despite the reins applied and measures taken after.
you will be aware that the danish presidency steered discussions in the council to a rapid conclusion so that already by twenty one february we were able to adopt a general approach in council on both these proposals.
i should add that i remain confident that we will reach an agreement which is acceptable to the council and parliament in the end.
states experiencing or threatened with serious difficulties with respect to their financial stability will ensure that surveillance of those member states under a financial assistance programme or of course facing threats of financial instability is robust follows clear procedures and is embedded in eu law.
on the other hand doing nothing could also be morally unacceptable. while some countries are financing themselves without cost in the short run other countries are rapidly becoming insolvent due to the increasing cost of their new debt issues.
if increased spending and increased deficits had been the solution to our problems we would have no problems today.
i have to ask him whether there is a room inside the commission where he can leave that deep respect while he gets on with his work because the reality is that the commission in collaboration with the establishment political parties across europe have displayed a deep contempt for any democratic rights throughout the course of the crisis.
as always in these institutions this is shrouded in euphemisms that are largely the defence of the indefensible' as george orwell said.
the enhanced surveillance being referred to here means the placing of governments into administration it provides a legal basis for the semi colony status of many countries now within the european union it means the further technocratisation of economic policy and includes a mechanism to force countries into austerity programmes.
mr president over the past two years as the different measures to solve the eurozone crisis have been decided the legislation required to implement them has been struggling to catch up.
the two pack' should do just that adding the secondary legislation to implement the decisions that were made by the eurozone member states when they demanded monetary missions to greece and others as a condition of financial assistance.
we need to proceed quickly as events continue to unfold in individual member states and we should not extend the scope.
the framework being put in place rightly allows for the different treatment that spain will receive separating out the concept of recapitalisation of banks from a macroeconomic adjustment plan.
mr president the aim of the two pack' is to transpose the fiscal treaty into secondary law but instead of reinforcing the logic of the treaty the two pack' reports water it down.
unfortunately he did not go one step further by adding that if a member state is unwilling to surrender its sovereignty in this way it should be given the option of leaving the eurozone.
i was criticised as being irresponsible for tabling an amendment in this sense but i believe it is the other way round it is irresponsible not to consider the possibility of a country leaving the eurozone. mr president you can choose to ignore reality but reality will not ignore you.
following the greek elections this weekend the facts will come to haunt us all.
she confuses eu legislation with the manifesto of her socialist party.
during negotiations mr gauzs ceded too much to the left more than many members of the ppe regarded desirable.
in fact more members voted against or abstained than voted in favour.
democracy means rule by the people and not wise rule by the people. democracies have the right to be foolish.
putting the populations of debtor countries out of employment will not help them to get out of debt. advice for countries to be frugal should be addressed to them before they get into debt and not when they are heavily indebted.
is the answer to borrow even more so they can engage in keynesian expansionism?
but reversion to devalued domestic currency would itself produce export led growth.
but you will understand that i cannot make any specific commitments today.
i commit myself to keeping you informed of any further developments and i hope that we will be able to find a solution.
we replied to this letter recalling that there are unresolved political issues which still prevent agreement in the council. one of these issues is the legal base of the proposal.
the bulgarian presidency has taken over the results of the technical work which was well advanced under the successive presidencies that preceded us.
indeed this aspect calls into question the very applicability of the ordinary legislative procedure in this file.
so we are currently pursuing consultations with delegations with a view to further advancing the file.
i was the ppe shadow on this file and in this chaos after months of hard work we found the right balance i think between the demand for more transparency and protecting eu companies on the other hand.
blocking this dossier simply because member states cannot agree on the legal base is simply not serious.
to address this public demand the commission came up with a proposal and public countrybycountry reporting in two thousand and sixteen two years ago.
here i am representing all member states and i'm not in a position to name any country in the process.
i would like to say that it's not about a lack of urgency in the council but it is related to the need to search for an agreement and this requires time and effort from the presidency and also time in capitals for delegations to finalise their positions.
as you know in order to move ahead we need unanimity in the council.
many of those who voted leave' in the uk were frustrated by the effects of globalisation so intensive programmes preparing people for this new world which is developing at the speed of sound should be a high priority.
however it is important to recognise that many across europe are feeling left behind.
it will be a real feather in your cap mr fico if we can conclude on this where very many other presidencies have failed. i may be a british mep but i am a committed european and i want to ensure that the eu can move forward.
the eu is often depicted as centralised and strong but the truth is it is weak and fragmented.
firstly you rightly said it is important that the eu tackles its communication problems.
learning from the recent events in the uk i would suggest three points.
the eu is blamed for a crisis from the economy to employment to migration when it is member states which block decisive and collective action failing to implement what has been agreed.
the uk referendum shows the power of lies and exaggeration to sway rational people easily.
i wish prime minister fico every success but one low hanging fruit is the money market funds file. this file needs to be concluded quickly especially in the current context given the importance of these funds in addressing systemic risks and short term financing of the economy.
so the eu has to deliver by doing more on education and skills.
secondly it is critical that you reform what is not working and let us start with the council.
send. i am glad we will not continue on that path because the european institutions as such jointly as you have said have to tackle the challenges which are in front of
value. you have our support and we hope that we will jointly
mr president prime minister this presidency will be a pivotal one for the european institutions.
not only do you have important work on economic growth and stability but much has to be done to resolve the challenges posed by migration flows into and across europe.
however you also face the challenge of the results of the referendum in the united kingdom.
in a europe which has been dominated by stories of those fleeing war in syria and iraq this has been a remarkable exercise in democracy.
we now need to lift our eyes to negotiating a settlement. hardened rhetoric and hollowed out positions from which we carp at each other will simply not help.
i hope your presidency prime minister will focus on finding real solutions solutions that help us trade cooperate and build a better more secure future for all of our people.
mr president much has been said over the last two weeks regarding the referendum in the united kingdom. things have been said in the heat of the moment strong feelings have been expressed on all sides and emotions have been running high.
all this has been understandable.
as you know i supported britain's membership of the european union and i had hoped for a different result.
but we have a clear decision and it is a decision that must be respected.
we now need to move on.
prime minister the slovak presidency of the council comes at a critical time.
your government has a crucial role to play in re setting the terms of the debate and looking forwards not back.
as we consider the future we should bear in mind the words of her majesty the queen speaking just a few days ago.
she said this one hallmark of leadership in such a fast moving world is allowing sufficient room for quiet thinking and contemplation which can in turn enable deeper cooler consideration of how challenges and opportunities can best be addressed'.
as we look ahead we need that deeper cooler consideration in our reflections on the future of the european union and its relationship with the united kingdom.
we need to reflect on the meaning of the referendum and how it expresses not just the concerns of the british people but concerns felt by millions across the continent.
many want an effective european union but they want a limited european union.
that is the kind of reform that my group will continue to champion.
discussions will shortly begin on the united kingdom's departure from the union.
we should be conscious that we are not simply discussing a technocratic withdrawal agreement;
we are laying the foundations of a new relationship between the uk and the eu.
in the united kingdom we must maintain our best traditions of internationalism.
the country i know and love is tolerant and welcoming and this must not change.
i deplore the racist and xenophobic actions of a small minority that we have recently witnessed.
while britain has chosen to leave the european union it has not voted to leave behind its traditional values of decency and of respect for all those who live amongst us and who make such a positive contribution to our country.
in so many areas we share mutual interests such as developing a thriving global economy fighting terrorism and promoting a cleaner environment.
so whilst the discussions will be detailed and complex let us all approach them in a positive and constructive spirit.
let us build a renewed partnership between the united kingdom and the european union based on our shared values our history of cooperation and our long standing friendships.
' in this case i think it does not.
while i accept that this money was used to support small clubs etcetera i disagree with my colleague brian hayes when i ask the question does the end justify the means?
at best this was an improper transaction and because of that the money should be returned. given that it has already been spent on small clubs etcetera i believe it is now the duty of the state to step in and give that money to the football association of ireland.
i find it extremely unfortunate that the house could not see its way to supporting those amendments today.
i have seen this situation develop during my time in this parliament from a few protests in kiev to the worst security crisis since the end of the cold war.