26 November 2011

Guy Verhofstadt: Without solidarity and discipline, the monetary union is not sustainable

Verhofstadt said that maybe the country that has the most to lose from the disappearance of the euro is the UK, the City of London, the financial heart of Europe. The UK trades more in euros than any other city in the world.

In his speech given at the ELDR Congress in Palermo, Verhofstadt also stressed the following:

"But let’s face the reality: the most powerful country in the world today is a federal state for more than 200 hundered years, the United States of America. And the most powerful state in the Union since the Second World War. It’s Germany. The Federal Republic of Germany.

Whether we call it federal or not. We can only save the euro if we establish real discipline and at the same time real solidarity. Discipline without solidarity is not a real union. And solidarity without discipline is simply a bottomless pit. 

When I hear today that Mrs Merkel wants to change the Treaty and to root discipline in the Treaty, in article 136, I can only applaud. Also, Andrew Duff, I think, he likes Treaty changes. But I am also saying, if we change article 136, we need also to change article 125. To anchor solidarity in the Treaty.

Nevertheless I do not like to criticse Germany all the time. That we are now under a German “diktat”. Discipline is not a German “diktat”, it is a liberal “diktat”. As solidarity is also a liberal diktat. They are two sides of the same coin. They reinforce each other. And the fact that we defend both of them, makes us unique. Conservatives speak only of discipline and socialist throw money at so called solidarity. We keep the balance. 

But we are firmly united behind the idea that we need solutions for the short and the long term. On the short term, we firmly believe in the idea of a European collective redemption fund. A fund of €2.3 trillion. Proposed by the five wise economists. German economists. Where we mutualise debt of the euro countries above the 60 per cent mark, but combined with bold debt reductions schemes. Alexander Lambsdorff defended the idea in Die Welt. And the Commission proposed it in its Green Paper."

Full speech

© ALDE