Text tabled : A7-0180/2011

  Raffaele Baldassarre (PPE). – (IT) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the current crisis has shown that the Stability and Growth Pact is not working as it should.

Six Member States, three of which are in the euro area, are having budgetary problems and risk defaulting on their debt. This is a situation that we must urgently put an end to. It is important, however, that this be done in a way that is sustainable and with a view to the future. That is why I voted in favour of the Goulard report, whose approach of using sanctions I approve of, particularly with respect to manipulation of financial data, falsified statistics or misleading information on the part of a Member State.

At the same time, however, future efforts must be directed at what is the heart of the problem, namely the insufficient degree of economic integration within the European Union. Sanctions will have a merely cursory dissuasive effect if we do not reinforce the bonds forged by single economic policies by increasing the number of surveillance missions by the Commission, and in the medium term, the use of Eurobonds.