13 March 2014

VP Reding: Europe - Strengthened from the crisis, weakened for the European elections?

Reding stressed the need for a factual and objective debate on Europe before the elections in May. She also made the case for the democratic legitimacy of the European decision-making process.

Translated from the German

After five years of crisis and crisis management, now our citizens will have their say. For me, the debate is about opportunities and ideas. How we can make Europe even better - after we have learned from the crisis and initiated important reforms. Others, however, do not talk about opportunities but about supposed threats. It sometimes becomes a very emotional discussion - but we would all - and Europe would - benefit from a factual debate. 

Further reforms will be needed to make Europe stable and competitive in the long term and ensure an even stronger democratic control of institutions and decision-making processes. But Europe has emerged stronger from the crisis. Two years ago, many doomsayers predicted the end of the euro. Today, they are quiet. Since the second quarter of 2013, the European economy has been growing again. And we assume that the recovery is gaining momentum this year.

We Europeans have fought the crisis together, and this solidarity has proved successful. But assistance to crisis-stricken countries does not come free: in return they have to rectify their public finances and implement far-reaching reforms. Together, we will also ensure that Europe does not have to go through such a crisis again. With the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), we have built a protective shield for euro states in financial difficulties. We also coordinate our economic and fiscal policy much more at EU level. As part of the European Semester, the Commission notifies Member States each year of very concrete recommendations for reform. And so that in future the mistakes of bank managers cannot bring all Member States to the brink of bankruptcy, we are establishing the Banking Union, with a central authority and a central mechanism to restructure or resolve financially unsound institutions.

In this context, the European elections are extremely important because the more than 700 directly-elected MEPs have great powers. They co-decide on almost all the laws that we make for the 507 million EU citizens. And the Commissioners all have to be heard and confirmed by Parliament before they can take office. Of course we can be even more democratic - each Commissioner could be elected and the Commission President should be elected directly by the citizens. More and more decisions affect the citizens directly and are taken at European level. Our decision-making processes and institutions must therefore be more democratic and transparent.

I want to say a few words about the Troika at this point: It is sometimes presented as arbitrary, without legal basis - and without democratic legitimacy. If a Member State requests financial support, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has to be agreed, a contract in which the conditions for loans are put down. The programme countries themselves have to approve this contract, of course. In most countries that received financial assistance, the respective parliaments have voted on the memorandum and then again on the following individual reforms and legislative changes. I cannot see a lack of parliamentary scrutiny and democratic legitimacy. It is not the Troika who ultimately makes the decisions. It advises the countries, but the political responsibility remains with governments.

This does not mean that the Troika is perfect. During the crisis, we had to act quickly and we got the IMF involved to benefit from their experience and expertise. In the future, we should be able to solve our problems in Europe ourselves. Although the Troika has a solid legal and democratic basis, it has raised suspicion on the side of many people in Europe. This we should not ignore. Our European solution must have strong democratic legitimacy. Therefore, the European Commission must play a key role when Member States will get financial support.

Full speech (in German)

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