Callanan: Brussels summit was a glaring failure
Posted, January 18, 2012 @ 16:00
Last month's European Council meeting was no springboard for recovery but more likely a prelude to disaster, the European Parliament was told today.
In a Strasbourg debate on the December summit, the leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group Martin Callanan said the agreement, over which Prime Minister Cameron wielded the UK veto, might solve the next eurozone crisis but not the current one.
"What is worse is that the European Council diverted valuable political energy and resources away from facing the reality of the crisis. And in the aftermath, many sought to make scapegoats of those who neither caused the problem nor have the power to implement a solution, maybe to distract attention from the summit's glaring failure," said Mr Callanan.
"Furthermore, attacks on the ratings agencies by senior figures are completely ridiculous. It is akin to blaming the weather forecasters for rain in Brussels. When the Commission announces that it intends not to tackle the problem but to regulate the way it is reported, I know we are in serious trouble.
"The recommended medicine for many of the eurozone members at the heart of the crisis will kill the patient before it can possibly achieve a cure."
"Their debts are simply unsustainable and their fundamental uncompetitiveness is not being addressed. The obligations of continued eurozone membership are strangling the prospects of economic growth for a generation - in the medium term they need substantial economic reform; in the short term they frankly need devaluation.
"The proponents of this treaty are deluding themselves and trying to delude the rest of us."