Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 12 June 2013 - Strasbourg

Preparations for the European Council meeting (27-28 June 2013) (debate)

  Martin Callanan, on behalf of the ECR Group. – Mr President, three years ago Mr Barroso’s Commission, as part of the Troika, predicted that Greece would grow by 2.1% in 2012. In the real world of course we know that this was completely fallacious and Greece in fact contracted by 6.4% in 2012. This forecast sums up much of what is wrong in Europe today. Of course the prediction was nonsense – many people said at the time that it would be – yet our leaders keep insisting on promising us things that they cannot deliver, guaranteeing us benefits and payments that have not been earned through productivity, with the bill of course being passed to our children and grandchildren.

In Greece the IMF confirms that the policies being pursued there by the Troika have been nothing short of disastrous. Youth unemployment is now at 58.3%. Surely, Commissioner Rehn, it is time to stop trying to blame everyone else. Take some responsibility yourself and try and find a different course. Likewise when it comes to the growing problem of youth unemployment – many people have mentioned it today – what is our answer? To once again promise what effectively we cannot deliver. Mr Swoboda of course has the right intentions when he talks about a youth guarantee but how are we going to create all these extra new jobs? More taxes, more regulation, more Europe seems to be offered to us today. Socialists believe that governments can create jobs and growth. Well they cannot. This attitude is part of the reason for the current debt mountain that we have in many of our Member States.

The much vaunted European social model is failing to deliver its core objectives of providing employment and adequate social conditions. As the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair – I think a member of your affinity, Mr Swoboda – said in 2005: what type of social model is it that has 20 million people unemployed? I wonder what he would say today now that figure has risen to 26 million people unemployed.

So we need a completely new model in the EU: one based on freedom, based on liberalism, based on open markets and based on free trade. Instead of tackling the symptoms of our economic woes, let us tackle the causes. Instead of timid efforts to open up markets, we need bold and ambitious proposals. At present every forward step on completing the single market or on signing a free trade agreement is countered by one backwards from the Commission’s Socialist Affairs Directive in league with this Parliament’s Unemployment Committee.

Frankly it is irresponsible to promise a job for every young person in Europe. What we can do is say that we will tear up the legislation that discourages work, that drives up energy prices, that ties entrepreneurs and businesses down in bureaucracy and that closes our markets. We should also say that we will do what we can to cut the taxation which depresses growth in so many of our economies.

On the issue of taxation, I read at the weekend that the Commission is demanding that Spain increase VAT on food. I ask myself: what alternative reality does the Commission live in? People in Spain are trying to feed themselves and the Commission is trying to make it harder for them. With such warped priorities is it any wonder that according to the latest polls 72% of Spanish people no longer trust the EU?

Throughout history Socialist policies, centralised economies have failed. Economies based on personal freedom and responsibility have thrived. Socialism is all about promising people things that can never be delivered. We only have to look at France for our example. President Hollande was elected pretending that things could go on as normal, as if governments could somehow create jobs and wealth out of thin air, and workers can have limitless social protection if only we could erect some kind of economic Maginot line around Europe’s borders! Well, of course, we know he has been mugged by reality. French unemployment is now at its highest for 15 years and yet, as other speakers have said, this weekend he told us that the crisis in Europe is now over, as if we needed further proof of how out of touch he is.

So, instead of more Socialism, let us allow businesses to do what they do best: create wealth. Let us stop trying to start a pointless trade war with China and instead seek to lead the world in opening up trade access. Let us be honest that free trade is about concentrated losses, but it is also about dispersed gains, so in the long run everybody gains although one or two people may lose. So let us drop this futile effort to protect the uncompetitive French film industry in the US trade deal. Let us start trusting people again to take responsibility for their own destinies.

(The speaker agreed to take a blue-card question under Rule 149(8))