Callanan: the best answer to the crisis - get out of the way
Posted, February 01, 2012 @ 16:00
Speaking in the European Parliament this afternoon on the outcome of Monday's EU summit, Martin Callanan MEP, Chairman of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, said that the best way to create jobs in the EU is for Eurocrats and MEPs to get out of the way and allow employers and businesses to grow.
In the debate with the commission and council presidents, Mr Callanan called for the EU to scrap the Employment and Social Affairs directorate in the commission, saying that employment directives were acting as barriers to jobs.
The North East Conservative MEP also warned that the Fiscal Compact was effectively making socialism illegal - a move that would render elections across the signatories null and void.
He said: "As a fiscal conservative, I should of course be delighted that we are enshrining fiscal discipline and balanced budgets within national laws and constitutions. However, as a Democrat, what greatly concerns me is that an electorate's ability to vote for a high spending Keynesian economic policy is effectively being removed from them. We are making Socialism illegal! This pact is effectively rendering all elections null and void across much of Europe.
"There is one action that we could take right here, right now to show businesses our commitment to growth. Surely one of the best ways for the EU to speed up growth is to scrap the Employment and Social Affairs directorate in the commission, and repatriate its responsibilities to national governments. Then we could scrap the Working Time Directive, the Agency Workers' Directive, the Pregnant Workers' Directive and the other barriers to actually employing people.
"We can't create jobs by talking about them, or passing resolutions. In fact, we - we Eurocrats and MEPs - can't create jobs at all. What we can do is get out of the way and allow entrepreneurs to invent things, make things, sell things. That's where employment growth comes from. And that's where social security comes from too."