Szabolcs Fazakas, on behalf of the PSE Group. – (HU) Thank you for the floor, Mr President. Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, as I am not a member of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, please allow me to approach the question before us from a different perspective. Last year’s financial crisis in America has reached Europe this year, and our financial markets, which we had believed to be stable, were shaken in their very foundations.

Instead of devising a unified EU solution, it was only after long hesitation that we were able to address the crisis with an individualised, harmonised response that is costing several billion euro per country. These individual national solutions cannot be the way to handle crises in the new EU Member States, which are unable on their own to move billions of euro. Initially, these countries trusted that, since their banks did not get involved in dubious, speculative overseas transactions, this international credit crisis might not affect them.

The lack of liquidity and crisis of confidence that accompanied the international financial crisis has, however, greatly shaken the finances of those States that rely on foreign credit, and the speculative attacks on national currencies further contributed to this turbulence. In this situation it was important for the new Member States to receive not only moral but concrete, tangible financial assistance from the European Union, and for the EU to extend its protection to those countries that have not yet joined the euro area.

This is not just solidarity, as inspired by the fundamental European value, but a shared European interest to avoid a domino effect by preventing even a single bank – not to mention an entire country – from becoming insolvent.

Bearing this in mind, we are now looking at raising the facility from EUR 12 billion to EUR 25 billion. In this context, the European Central Bank provided Hungary, which was most severely affected by the crisis on the money markets, with a rescue package of EUR 6.5 billion euro. This was a very fair and dignified solution, since Hungary has not only spearheaded reform and European unification for decades, but has also, since last year, halved its approximately 10% budget deficit, in accordance with the convergence programme adopted in 2006; that programme has been implemented systematically since that time, and the deficit this year is being reduced to 3%.

In order for the consolidation process required by the EU to continue, assistance is needed from international financial bodies. As a consequence of the financial and credit crisis, the entire world economy is now facing difficulties; yet individual EU Member States are trying to deal with these with their own instruments and in accordance with their own very specific goals. In order that the new Member States, which do not have such instruments at their disposal, should not lose out in the process, what is needed in order for Europe to weather the crisis jointly is not only to harmonise current actions but to adopt a common European strategy to deal with the economic crisis.

I hope that this financial rescue package constitutes the first rung on this ladder, and that once it has been adopted, we will be able to concentrate all our efforts jointly on solving the crisis of the real economy. Thank you for the floor.