The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, reported back to MEPs on the results of the EU summit in March 2011. He said that the summit was an important step forward in resolving the economic crisis. He welcomed the package of economic measures approved by the European leaders to preserve the euro zone’s financial stability and strengthen economic governance.

The majority of members were critical of the Summit’s results, judging the measures proposed by the Heads of State to be inadequate.

Recalling that EUR 400 billion has already been invested, the representative of the ALDE group considered that these measures were insufficient to resolve the crisis. The representative of the S&D group regretted the fact that these measures were not taken a year earlier. Both representatives stated that economic governance was a hostage to national interests and warned that the crisis won't be resolved until the banking sector has been cleaned up.

The representative of the Greens questioned the real meaning of economic measures for citizens whereas the ECR representative feared the crisis would be exploited to encourage a move to tax harmonisation and a tax union.

On the other hand, the EPP leader defended the results, stressing that the agreement on the Euro Plus Pact (which sets up an economic coordination mechanism) showed that there is a strong will among European leaders to draw lessons from the financial and economic crisis.

As regards the European stance on Libya, the S&D group highlighted the lack of consensus between France and Germany which showed that the European Council was not in control of the situation. The Greens also criticised the EU for not respecting human rights in its trade policy. The GUE/NGL regretted that Gaddafi is fighting demonstrators with weapons that he bought from the European Union.

Lastly, the EFD group representative strongly criticised Gaddafi’s actions. He believed that many had turned a blind eye because of the influence of his money and oil.

See the conclusions of the European Council.