MEPs criticised the way in which EU leaders are attempting to build an economic and monetary union, saying that it was leading nowhere and was far removed from the spirit and ambition which won the EU the Nobel Peace Prize. The comments were made on Wednesday morning during a debate with Commission president José Manuel Barroso and Cyprus's European affairs minister Andreas Mavroyiannis ahead of the European Council which starts on 13 December.
The leaders of the Christian Democrat, Social Democrat, Liberal Democrat, Green and the United Left groups denounced the intergovernmental system, which they said had failed and was unable to turn grand rhetoric into action.
They were especially sceptical about the coming summit, saying that their expectations of a good result were particularly low. The ECR and EFD leaders said that what was needed was less Europe, not more.
The main topics discussed were the road map for economic and monetary union, banking supervision, the pooling of sovereign debt, progress on the economic governance two pack, and the EU budget.
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