23 Amendments of Derk Jan EPPINK related to 2013/2134(INI)
Amendment 1 #
Motion for a resolution
Citation 3 a (new)
Citation 3 a (new)
- having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Articles 110-113,
Amendment 6 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A
Recital A
A. whereas the economic, social, financial and sovereign debt crises have not yet abated and the objective of a more balanced and integrated Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)deeper single market with liberalized services remains an unattained ambition;
Amendment 16 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B
Recital B
B. whereas the Commission's country- specific recommendations (CSRs) contain somemany useful insights, but on the whole fail to convince in terms of the balance of the policy prescriptions across policy areas;
Amendment 29 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital C
Recital C
C. whereas urgent action is required in many areas, inter alia in restoring lending to the real economy and SMEs, in fighting tax fraud and aggressive tax planning, and in seeking effective European solutions to youth unemployment and thus also significantly enhancing the social dimension of EMUthrough further labour market reforms focused on flexibility and responsiveness to demand for skilled labour;
Amendment 34 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital D
Recital D
D. whereas the democratic legitimacy of economic governance in the European Semester requires real and dedicated respect for parliamentary prerogatives at European and national level against the trend of an increasingly de- parliamentarised and intergovernmental culture of economic-policy making at EU level;
Amendment 47 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Welcomes the Commission's recognition that ‘to be successful, policies need not only to be well designed but to have political and social support’, and that Europe needs, beyond fiscal consolidation, real growth and specific and urgent action to tackle the unacceptably high levels of unemployment; through further labour market reforms focused on flexibility and responsiveness to demand for skilled labour;
Amendment 60 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Welcomes the Commission's recognition that ‘deficit’ countries need to boost their competitiveness and that ‘surplus’ countries need to boost their demand, and that this calls for a deep revision of the prevailing policy stance;
Amendment 66 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Urges the Commission and the Council to avoid taking a one-size-fits-all approach to the CSRs and ensure that recommendations are fine-tuned according to the national specificities and needs of the Member State concerned while remaining focused on firm structural reforms and growth-enhancing policies;
Amendment 93 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
Amendment 110 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. Calls on the Commission to include in the scope of a CCI financial supportMember States to structurally reforms in areas that block economic dynamism and efficiency such as the reforms of the national justice systems, technically supported by the EU Justice Scoreboard;
Amendment 113 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. WelcomNotes the use by the Commission of the margin of manoeuvre offered by the revised SGP to extend the deadlines for the correction of excessive deficits in seven procedures; calls on the Commission and the Council to ensure that the content and the calendar of the fiscal adjustment path are adapted to the specificity of each country and, particularly in ‘deficit’ countries, include the aforementioned margin of manoeuvre and the full use of structural funds, sound and sustainable structural reforms and the identification of investments (namely in the CSR) essential to boost competitiveness; calls on the Commission to clarify as a matter of urgency the ways in which to accommodate, under certain conditions, non-recurrent, public investment programmes with a proven impact on the sustainability of public financeincludes sound and sustainable structural reforms and the identification of investments (namely in the CSR) essential to boost competitiveness;
Amendment 128 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 12
Paragraph 12
12. Welcomes the Commission's statement that ‘surplus’ countries have a role to play in overcoming the current crisis, not only by reducing taxes and social security contributions but also by developing wages in order to boostand modernizing healthcare and pension suystainable domestic demand and promoting new investment opportunitiesems, but also by promoting new growth-friendly investment opportunities, especially into education, R&D, energy and infrastructure; stresses the importance of the positive spill-over effects which these actions will have across the EU;
Amendment 135 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. Urges the Commission to develop a genuine European industrial policy and a coherent European external trade policy, based on reciprocity and shared minimum standards, in particular in social that focuses on restoring European industrial competitiveness and scaling back policies that cause companies to relocate outside the EU, and a coherent Europeand environmental mattersxternal trade policy; believes that it is only by intelligently managing its interface with ‘globalisation’ that Europe can guarantee growth, jobs and, for several Member States, the recommended progressive reallocation of resources away from non-tradable sectors into tradable sectors;
Amendment 144 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. CommendNotes the Commission's recognition that there is a need for greater attention to be paid to the distributional impact of reforms, and calls on the Commission to carry out a thorough ex- ante assessment of the social impactshort-term costs and long-term benefits of all the new recommended reforms and to derive all the necessary conclusions from previous recommendations, including those made to Member States under financial assistance programmes;
Amendment 145 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
Amendment 156 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. Agrees that the ECB's action has ‘decisively contributed to the stability of the euro area’, limiting speculation on sovereign debt; considers, however, that insufficient growth and high (and still growing) levels of private and public debt in many Member States mean that ‘a carefully managed process of deleveraging’ is required; calls on the Commission, therefore, to quickly deliver its 2-pack commitments to Parliament in order to deepen the analysis on the partial substitution of national debt issuance through joint issuance in the form of a redemption fund and eurobills by decreasing unsustainably high financing costs for some Member states through the SMP and providing a liquidity backstop for sovereign debt markets through OMTs; considers, however, that insufficient growth and high (and still growing) levels of private and public debt in many Member States mean that ‘a responsible deleveraging’ is required;
Amendment 168 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17
Paragraph 17
17. Stresses that the financing of the real economy, and of SMEs in particular, has not been restored oin the EU's periphery; points out that major differences in access to credit further stimulate the growing internal divergence trends in the EU and euro area in particular and destroy the internal market through unfair competition conditions; points out also that negative economic prospects only partially justify such restrictive credit constraints; calls for closer monitoring of the banking sector practices in financing the real economy, in particular economically viable SMEs; calls for the Commission to prioritise work on alternative sources of financing for SMEs, in particular through the; calls for the Commission to prioritise work on alternative sources of financing for SMEs, in particular through private sources such as venture funds, peer to peer or equity funds. The use of structural funds, the European Investment Bank, the European Investment Fund and public development banks needs to be more efficient;
Amendment 181 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. Urges the Commission to submit a legislative proposal to create a Single Resolution Mechanism (including a Single European Authority and an industry financed Single European Fund), which is essential for completing the Banking Union; urges the Council to rapidly conclude negotiations with Parliament on the Deposit Guarantee Schemes Directive and on the Banking Recovery and Resolution Directive (to be negotiated in parallel);
Amendment 195 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19
19. Calls for direct banking recapitalisation by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) to be available as soon as all the pillars of the Banking Union – namely the Single Supervisory Mechanism and the Deposit Guarantee and Recovery and Resolution frameworks – are in place; given the urgency of having a Single Resolution Fund to accompany the SSM, supports the immediate frontloading of the ESM to feed the SRF, with a reimbursement period by industry; believes that the ESM facility must reinforce the EU budget and be managed under the Community method;
Amendment 208 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. Calls on the Council to concludediscard the negotiations for the Financial Transaction Tax and to include in its agenda, as a matter of urgency, the convergence of tax systems within the EU; highlights that taxation is still a matter of national sovereignty as laid down in the TFEU Articles 110 - 113;
Amendment 223 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 23
Paragraph 23
23. Stresses that the European Semester must in no way jeopardise the prerogatives ofnational parliaments and the European Parliament; urges the Commission to ensure the proper formal involvement of Parliament in all the steps of the European Semester process in order to increase the legitimacy of decisions which affect all citizens;
Amendment 225 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 24
Paragraph 24
24. Stresses the need to strengthen the democratic accountability to national parliaments and the European Parliament of essential elements of the euro area's operation, such as the ESM, Eurogroup decisions and the monitoring and evaluation of financial assistance programmes;
Amendment 232 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 25
Paragraph 25
25. Urges the Commission to ensure thatInvites Member States to involve their national parliaments, the social partners and civil society in the European Semester process as a whole, and particularly in the development and discussion of their national reform programmes;