presentation by Dr. Kostas Botopoulos, former MEP, member of the PASOK directorate
Invited, along with Prof. Christoforos Sardelis, at the wonderful house of the Swedish ambassador Hakan Malmqvist, I talked to the members of the Hellenic-Swedish Chamber of Commerce and to business executives about the recent developments in
a. Greek governance has been so bad the last few years that it cannot but change for the better. I brought up as examples the tripling of the debt and the doubling of the non-development state expenditure during 2007-2009; the conversely proportional performances of our country in the areas of corruption and competitiveness as well as the unjustifiably high number of convictions of Greece by the European Court of Justice (22 only in 2009) which have cost us another 6 million euros in fines.
MEPs, meeting in plenary in Strasbourg on 11 March, adopted a report on the European economic recovery plan calling for coordinated national action and
for the European Commission to speed up its contribution to stimulating the economy. However, the heated debate preceding the vote showed deep divisions among deputies, who split along party lines.
The report, written by Portuguese Socialist MEP Elisa Ferreira, caused a fiery exchange between EPP-ED deputy Gunnar Hökmark and Socialist group leader Martin Schulz, with Hökmark exclaiming, "The Socialists have called for lower interest rates at the peak of the economy. Mr Schulz, you should feel thankful that Europe and the ECB didn't listen to you. If they had, the European economy would have been much worse off now". Schulz interpreted the passing of the report, which included provisions on eliminating tax havens, as a shift to the left in European politics. "We can see the social democratisation of the EPP. It's good for the European Parliament if we see a shift to the left."
The report also suggested increasing EU funding for the European Investment Bank, with Ferreira saying ahead of the vote, "The crisis is deeper than we expected, unemployment will be higher and Europe is taking too long to bring the solution to its citizens. The European Parliament is calling on the Commission through these reports to coordinate national actions and interventions and set the necessary budgetary conditions for this to happen".
Other suggestions in the report are the creation of eurobonds, where EU countries would float their debt in common on financial markets. The issue has been dismissed as politically impossible by the Commission. The Socialists have also called on member states to step up their stimulus plans to 1.5% of GDP, rather than the 1% currently being estimated by the Commission.
Socialist MEP Costas Botopoulos ( Greece) added, "Today's debate has shown a distinctive right-wing and Socialist policy towards the crisis. The right-wing policy is pretty simple: the crisis is a bad thing, it will pass and we need to be patient, then we need to take some technical measures. The Socialist position is that we must attack the roots of the crisis, we must radically change the economic paradigm and curb all speculation, which has led us to the financial crisis. This is not a neutral crisis but imposed by specific policies, and mostly by right-wing governments".
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