39 Amendments of Burkhard BALZ related to 2013/2277(INI)
Amendment 11 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas the Troika, consisting of the European Commission, the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), originated in the decision of 25 March 2010 by euro area Heads of State and Government to establish a joint programme and to provide conditional bilateral loans to Greece, thereby also building on recommendations from the Ecofin Council, and has since also been operational in Portugal, Ireland and Cyprus;
Amendment 45 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas, within the Troika, the Commission is responsible forentrusted with negotiating the conditions for financial assistance for euro area Member States ‘in liaison with the ECB’ and ’wherever possible together with the IMF’, the financial assistance hereinafter referred to as ‘EU-IMF assistance’;
Amendment 52 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas the Troika is the basic structure for negotiation between the official lenders and the governments of the recipient countries, as well as for reviewing the implementation of adjustment programmes; whereas for the European side in case of EFSF and ESM support, the final decisions as regards financial assistance and conditionality are taken by the Eurogroup;
Amendment 82 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital H
Recital H
H. whereas the total amount of financial assistance in the four programmes is unprecedented, as are the duration and shape of the programmes, leading to an unusual situation where the assistance has almost exclusively replaced the usual financing provided by the markets; whereas the involvement of the IMF ensures not only a possible engagement in terms of co-financing, but also the availability of strong expertise resulting from the IMF financial assistance programmes conducted since 1947;
Amendment 94 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital I
Recital I
I. whereas the economic situation and recent developments in some Member States have compromised the quality of employment, social protection and health and safety standards; whereas without the EU-IMF financial and technical assistance the consequences for the quality of employment, social protection and health and safety standards would have been considerably worse and probably hardly bearable;
Amendment 117 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital J
Recital J
J. whereas the Task Force for Greece was set up to strengthen the capacity of the Greek administration to enhance fiscal consolidation, to design and implement structural reforms to improve the competitiveness and functioning of the economy and society and create the conditions for sustained recovery and job creation, as well as to speed up the absorption of EU Structural and Cohesion Funds in Greece and to provide critical resources to finance investment;
Amendment 126 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K
Recital K
K. whereas, in its resolution of 20 November 2012, Parliament calls for high standards of democratic accountability at Union level to be applied to the Troika; whereas such accountability notably requires the Troika to be heard in the European Parliament before taking up its duties andin particular the Commission representatives in the Troika to be subject to regular reporting to and democratic scrutiny by the European Parliament;
Amendment 130 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital K a (new)
Recital K a (new)
Ka. whereas, for Member States in the euro area experiencing or threatened with serious difficulties with respect to their financial stability, the enhanced surveillance, the macroeconomic adjustment programmes and the evaluation of the sustainability of government debt are codified in the TwoPack, in particular in Regulation (EU) No 472/2013, stating clear competences and responsibilities for the Commission, the ECB, the IMF and the Member States concerned;
Amendment 136 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital L
Recital L
L. whereas the programmes were in the short run primarily meant to avoid a disorderly default and stop speculation on sovereign debt; whereas the medium term aim was to ensure that the money that was lent would be reimbursed, thus avoiding a large financial loss that would rest on the shoulders of the taxpayers of the countries which are providing the assistance and guaranteeing the funds; whereas this also requires the programmeimplementation of the programme by the relevant Member States to deliver sustainable growth and effective debt reduction in the medium and long term; whereas the programmes were not suited to comprehensively correcting macroeconomic imbalances which had accumulated sometimes over decades;
Amendment 180 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1a. Underlines that the origins of the crises have to be taken into account, namely a widespread non-compliance with the requirements of the Stability and Growth Pact, severe macroeconomic imbalances inside the Member States concerned, a disproportionate increase of wage levels compared to the development of the Member State's competitiveness and the increase in public and private debt;
Amendment 247 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. Notes that the initial agreement between the Portuguese authorities on the one side and the EU and IMF on the other was adopted on 17 May 2011 in the relevant MoUs containing the policy conditionality for EU-IMF financial assistance; further notes that the Portuguese programme has since been reviewed regularly, leading to the combined eighth and ninth quarterly reviews of Portugal’s economic adjustment programme, with good prospects to complete the programme soon;
Amendment 265 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. Notes that the IMF is the global institution tasked with providing states experiencing balance of payment problems with conditional financial assistance; points to the fact that all Member States are members of the IMF and have therefore the right to request its assistance; points out that the European level benefits from the involvement and expertise of the IMF;
Amendment 278 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Deplores the unpreparedness of the EU and international institutions, including the IMF, for a sovereign debt crisis of a large magnitude inside a monetary unionon global financial markets;
Amendment 292 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Acknowledges, however, that the immense challenge the Troika faced leading to the crisis was unique as a result of the poor state of public finances, overdue structural reforms, a lack of regulation of financial services, large macroeconomic imbalances inside the Member States concerned, and the fact that a number of instruments such as external devaluation were not available due to the constraints of monetary union; notes, moreover, that time was running out, legal obstacles had to be cleared, fear of a melt-down of the euro area was palpable, political agreements had to be reached, the world economy was in a downturn, and a number of countries which were intended to contribute financial support had seen their own public and private debt increase in alarming ways;
Amendment 306 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. Regrets the lack of transparency in the MoU negotiationAsks for more transparency with regard to the contents of the MoUs; notes the necessity to evaluate whether formal documents were clearly communicated in due time to the national parliaments and the European Parliament; further notes the possible negative impact of such practices on citizens’ rights and the political sunderlines that the involvement of national parliaments in the negotiation and implementation of an MoU differs from Member State to Member State, primarily depending on the relevant constituation within the countries concernedal requirements;
Amendment 322 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
Amendment 343 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. RegretNotes that the programmes for Greece, Ireland and Portugal comprise a number of detailed prescriptions for health systems reform and expenditure cuts; regrets that the programmes are not bound by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the Treaties, including Art. 168(7) TFEU that are necessary to achieve the goals of the adjustment programmes as negotiated by the troika and the relevant Member State concerned;
Amendment 357 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16 a (new)
Paragraph 16 a (new)
16a. Points out that the EU-IMF financial assistance grants time for an orderly economic adjustment of the Member States concerned, while, without the EU- IMF assistance, immediate and radical adjustment measures would have been necessary with unpredictable consequences for the economy and society of the relevant Member State concerned;
Amendment 391 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Points to the unacceptableconsiderably high level of youth unemployment in the four Member States under assistance programmes; points especially to the sharp increase in youth unemployment in Greece, Cyprus and Portugal; therefore welcomes the recent initiatives at EU level regarding youth education and employment, the Erasmus+ programme, the Youth Employment Initiative, the 6 billion EUR for the EU Youth Guarantee Scheme; underlines that the competences related to employment remain primarily with the Member States; therefore encourages the Member States to further modernise their national education systems and to engage in substantial reforms of their national labour markets;
Amendment 408 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18a. Points out that Article 8 of Regulation (EU) No 472/2013 builds on the national ownership and the responsibilities of the Member States concerned to involve and seek the views of social partners as well as relevant civil society organisations, when preparing adjustment programmes;
Amendment 424 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Welcomes the end of the programme for Ireland and the expected end of the programme for Portugal; regrets the lack of progress in Greece despite unprecedented reforms having been undertaken; notes that the responses given in the Parliament's questionnaire are generally based on a positive assessment of the framework and work of the troika;
Amendment 445 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 20
Paragraph 20
20. Underlines that adequate economic models are necessary in order to produce credible and efficient adjustment programmes; deplores that adequate statistics and information were not always available while acknowledging that economic forecasts usually contain some level of uncertainty and unpredictability; deplores that adequate statistics and information were not always available and reiterates its call for improvements on the quality and reliability of statistics; points out that in Greece large- scale fraud was happening in this respect in the years preceding the setting up of the programme;
Amendment 461 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. Notes that financial assistance achieved in the short run the avoidance of a disorderly default on sovereign debt that would have had extremely severe economic and social consequences, as well as spill-over effects for other countries of an incalculable magnitude, and possibly the forced exit of countries from the euro area; further notes that there is no guarantee this will be avoided in the long run; also notes that the financial assistance and adjustment programme in Greece have not prevented an orderly default nor contagion of the crisis to other Member States; deplores the economic and social downturn which became evident when the fiscal and macroeconomic corrections were put into place;
Amendment 489 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Deplores howeverTakes notes of the sometimes over- optimistic assumptions made by the Troika, especially as far as growth is concerned, but also the insufficient recognition of political resistance to change in some Member States; deploreconsiders the fact that this also affected the Troika’s analysis of the interplay between fiscal consolidation and growth; notes that as a result fiscal targets could not be fulfilled; underlines in addition that strong and ambitious conditionality is important, also to tackle the issue of moral hazard;
Amendment 515 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. RegretNotes that the reduction of structural deficits in all programme countries since the start of their respective assistance programmes has not yet led to a reduction in the ratios of public debt to GDP; underlintakes notes that the ratio of public debt to GDP has instead sharply increased in all programme countries; underlines that the receipt of conditional loans naturally leads to an increase of public debt;
Amendment 525 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25
Paragraph 25
25. Considers that fiscal multipliers are difficult to assess with certainty; recalls in this respect that the IMF admitted to underestimating the fiscal multiplier in its growth forecasts prior to October 2012 but that the Commission stated in November 2012 that forecast errors were not due to the underestimation of fiscal multipliers; points out that this expression of public disagreement between the Commission and the IMF was not followed up;
Amendment 548 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 27
Paragraph 27
27. Considers that too little attention has been given to alleviating the negative impact of adjustment strategies in the programme countries; recalls the origins of the crises; notes that the economic and social consequences would have been worse without the EU-IMF financial and technical assistance;
Amendment 568 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 28
Paragraph 28
28. Stresses that national-level ownership is importantcrucial, and that failure to implement agreed measures has consequences in terms of the expected results;
Amendment 587 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 29
Paragraph 29
29. Notes that the Troika’s mandate has been perceived as being unclear and lacking transparency; underlines that the Troika is built on a clear mandate from the Eurogroup and is acting on the basis of MoUs that were concluded with the national governments (under participation of the national parliaments) of the Member States concerned;
Amendment 603 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 30
Paragraph 30
Amendment 654 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34
Paragraph 34
34. Notes that the ECB’s role is not sufficiently defined, as it is stated in the ESM Treaty that the Commission should work ‘in liaison with the ECB’, thus reducing the ECB’s role to that of a provider of expertise; further notes that the ECB mandate is limited by the TFEU to monetary policy and; notes that thean involvement of the ECB in any matter related to budgetary, fiscal and structural polics foreseen in Regulation (EU) No 472/2013; acknowledges the expertise and input coming from the ECB as to complement the views isof therefore on uncertain legal ground other Troika partners;
Amendment 703 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 37
Paragraph 37
37. Points to the fact that the ESM is intergovernmental by nature, is rightfully bound by the unanimity rule, and is subject to political influence exerted by finance ministers, heads of state and government as well as national parliaments;
Amendment 725 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 38
Paragraph 38
38. Reiterates its call for all decisions related to the strengthening of the EMU to be taken on the basis of the Treaty on European Union; takes the view that any departure from the Community method and increased use of intergovernmental agreements wouldmight divide and weaken the Union, including the euro area; is aware of the fact that a Treaty change needs to be subject to thorough preparations and might only be realised in a mid-term or long-term perspective;
Amendment 793 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 40
Paragraph 40
40. Urges that in the short runIs of the opinion that consideration shouldmight be given to amendingdapt the ESM Treaty in order to allow standard decispecify the role and competences of the Commissions, to be taken by a qualified majority rather than by unanimity, and to allow for precautionary assistance to be givenhe ECB and IMF, where appropriate; underlines the importance that all decisions by the ESM are taken by unanimity;
Amendment 797 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 41
Paragraph 41
41. Calls for the involvementconsultation of social partners in the design and implementation of adjustment programmes, current and future; notes that Article 8 of Regulation (EU) No 472/2013 builds on the national ownership and the responsibilities of the Member States concerned to involve and seek the views of social partners as well as relevant civil society organisations, when preparing adjustment programmes;
Amendment 818 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 42
Paragraph 42
42. Demands that the Troika take stock of the current debate on fiscal multipliers and consider the revision of MoUs on the basis ofAcknowledges that economic forecasts usually contain some level of uncertainty and unpredictability; points out that, independent from theoretical economic models or debates thereof, priority should be given to the inevitableness and necessity of the adjustment programmes and their surveillance as well as to the lnatest empirical resultional-level ownership in the implementation of the already agreed MoUs;
Amendment 839 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 43
Paragraph 43
43. Is concerned, in particular,Underlines that, for Member States in the euro area experiencing or threatened with serious difficulties with respect to their financial stability, the enhanced surveillance, the macroeconomic adjustment programmes and the evaluation of the sustainability of government debt are codified in the TwoPack, in particular in Regulation (EU) No 472/2013, stating clear competences and responsibilities for the Commission, the ECB, the IMF and the Member States concerned; suggests to improve the accountability of the Commission when it acts in its capacity as a member of the Troika; requests that the Commission representative(s) in the Troika should be heard in the European Parliament before taking up their duties and should be subject to regular reporting to the European Parliament;
Amendment 861 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 44
Paragraph 44
44. Calls for an reassessment of the decision-making process of the Eurogroup, amending MoUs with the Member States receiving EU-IMF financial assistance to include appropriate democratic accountability at both national and European levels; calls for European guidelines to be established in order to ensure appropriate democratic control on the implementation of measures at national leveland transparency of the Eurogroup to include appropriate democratic accountability at both national and European levels, also in relation to the budgetary sovereignty of national parliaments;
Amendment 875 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 45
Paragraph 45
45. Is of the opinion that the option of a Treaty change allowing for the extension of the scope of the present Art. 143 TFEU to all Member States, instead of being restricted to non-euro Member States, should be explored ; similarly, takes the view that the option of a Treaty change to create a European Monetary Fund within the Community framework as an alternative to the IMF should also be explored; further considers that other issues to be evaluated include the currentbelieves that at present the institutional framework of the Troika, the involvement of the ECB in the review of the programmes and the mandatory involvement of the IMF in euro area financial assistance programmes as enshrined in the ESM treaty have, with possible improvements in the democratic accountability, proven to be a solid and successful basis;