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08 November 2010

ECON committee: Juncker stressed that Parliament must help put economic governance back on the right track


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Mr Juncker also criticised the decision taken by EU Member States to make sanctions more difficult to deploy than the Commission had foreseen in its earlier proposals.



"Will economic sanctions not place an underperforming economy in a worse situation than ever?"  asked Philippe Lamberts (Greens/EFA, BE).  Mr Juncker replied that if the sanctions policy were developed in a way such that it were easy to use, Member States would be wary of it and this would lead them to take action in time to avoid the sanctions.

Pooling public debt

Sylvie Goulard (ALDE, FR), suggested that a system for pooling some EU public debt could be constructed as an instrument to create incentives to keep debt below the stability and growth pact criteria and disincentives to exceed public debt limits.  She added that this idea should already be considered in work being done by the Council and the Parliament on the Commission's economic governance proposals.
 
Member State default system
"Would a default system, allowing the private sector to carry some of the cost of public debt not be useful in the Eurozone crisis resolution mechanism?" asked Astrid Lulling (EPP, LU).  Mr Juncker accepted this as a possibility, but insisted that this should not be considered as the be all and end all of any crisis resolution model to be developed.
 
Imbalances
Udo Bullman (S&D, DE), stressed the need to address trading surpluses and deficits among Member States at European level, saying that the problem should be a common one.
 
Global rules
Vicky Ford (ECR, UK), asked how important was it to have the Basel rules on banking implemented to the same degree across the world.  "I very much hope that countries will comply with the latest set of Basel rules more fully and quickly than they have done previously", said Mr Juncker, adding that this was a central issue to take up with the United States.
 
Next step in the legislative package
 
MEPs working on the governance legislative package are expected to finalise their draft reports by December and to table them officially in the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee in January.
 
 





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