Activities of Morten MESSERSCHMIDT related to 2015/2344(INI)
Shadow opinions (1)
OPINION on budgetary capacity for the Eurozone
Amendments (16)
Amendment 2 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Believes that the crisis enhanced the need for improvement in EU economic governance and that the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) must be progressively completed; – with the proviso that this must not in any way undermine the EU’s democracies – and that before the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is progressively completed, the first stage must be to revise the geography of the eurozone, which should not be allowed to extend beyond those countries that, taken together, would correspond to an optimal currency area (ZMO), this being a sine qua non for any currency to work, failing which the euro will continue to reduce flexibility, an intolerable situation in an economy open to what is in some cases unfair competition and one that would apply whatever the reforms and however many billions in financial transfers were channelled towards the southern countries, to quote the view that has long been held by many economists, including the five Nobel Prize winners, Maurice Allais, Milton Friedman, Amartya Sen, Paul Krugman, and Joseph Stiglitz;
Amendment 5 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Believes that the crisis enhanced the need for improvement in EU economic governance and that national parliaments must play an important role to ensure legitimacy, and accountability in the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) must be progressively completed;
Amendment 19 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Considers that the establishment of a budgetary capacity within the eurozone is necessary to completeunacceptable for the EMU and that it is recommendable to create a budgetary capacity, albeit limited, under the current Treaty frameworkwill provoke controversies and divisions between Member States; believes that EU has sufficient tools like ESM for financial emergency intervention to perform stabilization function;
Amendment 20 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Considers that the establishment of a budgetary capacity within the new eurozone, comprising the optimal currency area (ZMO) only, is necessary to complete the EMU and that it is recommendable to create a budgetary capacity, albeit limited, under the current Treaty framework;
Amendment 42 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. Recalls that such capacityany stabilization mechanism should be part of the EU budget as laid down in Article 310 (1) TFEU and should comply with the provisions of Articles 310(4) and 312(1) TFEU;
Amendment 44 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 4 a (new)
Paragraph 4 a (new)
4a. Recognises the need to avoid imposing an even heavier tax burden on taxpayers and hence that 1) no European tax should be created and 2) European budget expenditure should be subject to a ceiling not exceeding 1% of GDP; 3) calls on the Commission and the Council to propose a reform aimed at rationalising the European budget, not least with a view to stamping out everything conducive to fraud, disorder, cronyism, and propaganda, cutting the Structural Funds, and complying more exactly with the recommendations in the annual reports of the Court of Auditors, which have been very critical in the last 20 years;
Amendment 46 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Points out that, pursuant to Article 311 TFEU, it is possible to raise the own resources ceilings, to establish new categories of own resources (even if only from a limited number of Member States) and to assign certain revenue to finance specific items of expenditure, as provided for in Article 21 of the Financial Rules1; , under a special legislative procedure requiring the Council to act unanimously and Member States to give their approval in accordance with their constitutional rules, to lay down ‘the provisions relating to the system of own resources’, to establish new categories of own resources (there is nothing in the above article to prevent these from coming only from a limited number of Member States, subject to an objective criterion), to abolish an existing category, and to assign certain revenue to finance specific items of expenditure, as provided for in Article 21 of the Financial Rules1; considers that it would be desirable to do away with VAT-based resources, as this system is too complex, and rely instead on a single annual national contribution based on a percentage of GNI; __________________ 1 Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union and repealing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002.
Amendment 48 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 5
Paragraph 5
5. Points out that, pursuant to Article 311 TFEU, it is possible to raise the own resources ceilings, to establish new categories of own resources (even if only from a limited number of Member States) and to assign certain revenue to finance specific items of expenditure, as provided for in Article 21 of the Financial Rules1 ; The decision shall not enter into force until it is approved by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements; __________________ 1 Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 966/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on the financial rules applicable to the general budget of the Union and repealing Council Regulation (EC, Euratom) No 1605/2002.
Amendment 53 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
Amendment 54 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 6
Paragraph 6
6. Underlines that the EU budget also offers guarantees for specific lending operations, which in principle, however, should not be used to finance the EU budget, and that several instruments, such as the EFSM and the EGF, allow for funds to be mobilised over and above the MFF expenditure ceilings;
Amendment 60 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Reiterates the need for democratic legitimacy and accountability, implying the adoption of the community method, namely with the involvement of Parliament in the shaping, implementation and oversight of a budgetary capacity, dovetailing with, and without encroaching on, the prerogatives of the national parliaments; also points out that the own resources system is a hybrid system: some revenue – traditional own resources – is of a fiscal nature, since it results from the fact that the EU has and exercises a genuine power to levy taxes directly on the taxpayers concerned, but the bulk is generated by automatic sharing of national budget resources, followed by automatic transfer of the proportion due to the EU, which is index-linked to macroeconomic statistical aggregates;
Amendment 63 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 7
Paragraph 7
7. Reiterates the need for democratic legitimacy and accountability, implying the adoption of the community method, namely with the involvement ofprinciples of subsidiarity and proportionality with the involvement of national parliaments and the European Parliament in the shaping, implementation and oversight of athe EU budgetary capacity;
Amendment 68 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Recalls that the protocols on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and on the role of national parliaments offer ample opportunities for national parliaments’ involvement in this respect; points out that it is profoundly anxious to preserve the eminent budgetary prerogative of the national parliaments of the countries from which so-called own resources originate and that it is committed to the fundamental democratic principle of ‘no taxation without representation’, which should not be gradually yoked together with, let alone replaced by, the principle of ‘no representation without taxation’; warns against the real danger that the EU might move in the two unwelcome directions referred to above;
Amendment 71 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. RecallInsists that the protocols on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality and on the role of national parliaments offer ample opportunities foempower national parliaments’ to be involvement in this respectd in coordination and scrutinising of the EU economic policy;
Amendment 76 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
Amendment 81 #
Draft opinion
Paragraph 9 – subparagraph 1 (new)
Paragraph 9 – subparagraph 1 (new)
Emphasises that EU Member States' economies are linked and believes that all Member States should be involved, to ensure the long-term economic sustainability of the eurozone.