25/03/2009
EU favours political spin over serious recovery plan
Speaking after his strong intervention in the European Parliamentary debate with Council President Topolanek and Commission President Barroso, PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen said "The Council and Commission are trying to hide the truth. To claim that Europe is investing 3.3% of GDP in recovery is pure political spin. Of course when unemployment is going up then unemployment benefit payments will go up too - but this is not investing in new jobs and cannot be presented as investment in growth. Europe still needs a serious, effective recovery plan, and I want to see it presented on 7 May."
Rasmussen added "It is a scandal that President Sarkozy has reduced the employment summit to a troika. The unemployment crisis will not disappear because he refuses to discuss what to do about the freefall in employment."
"Now the IMF is telling us that the economic recession is getting deeper and will reach minus 3.2% in the Eurozone, which probably means it will be even worse in some other parts of the EU. If Europe doesn't make a strong and urgent new effort now to invest tin growth, as we propose in the PES recovery plan, I fear unemployment will reach 25 million by early 2010. Europe must act, and must act decisively at the employment summit on 7 May."
Rasmussen told the European Parliament, in the presence of Topolanek and Barroso, that the Summit had been a Council of silence and illusions, that the EU's recovery plan was less than half of the US' and well below what the IMF recommended, and contrasted President Sarkozy's opposition to a full summit on employment on 7 May to the number of extra summits the French President called his Presidency of the Council.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Julian Scola, Communications Advisor - Media & Campaigns
Party of European Socialists, Rue du Trône, 98, B-1050 Brussels
Mobile +32 486 117 394
julian.scola@pes.org
