11/03/2009
Europe “Not done enough" on crisis
PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen told European Commission President Barroso, in a debate in the European Parliament on the EU Summit next week on the crisis, that Europe needed “to do more” and create a “new recovery effort” to fight the recession and protect employment which he said was in “freefall”.
The PES President informed Barroso that the real EU stimulus was not 3.3% of GDP as the Commission President claimed but nearer 0.9%, and warned that this was less than half of what was being proposed by US President Obama in the American stimulus package. He told Barroso “don’t paint so rosy a picture.”
Rasmussen challenged Barroso to say whether he agreed with Jean-Claude Juncker who claimed yesterday that Europe had done enough to counter the crisis. Rasmussen bluntly told the Parliament that Europe had “not done enough.”
Rasmussen appealed to Barroso for a comprehensive updated plan to fight the recession and to match the US efforts to create growth.
The PES President also warned it was necessary to “avoid new economic dividing lines in Europe” and urged the Commission to “consider new financial possibilities” to assist central and eastern European economies that were in trouble as a result of the credit crisis and currency speculation. Rasmussen proposed that Eurobonds were one possibility and further assistance from the EIB was another.
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
