Euro Parl accepts Fiscal Rules status quo when radical reform needed – Chris MacManus MEP

Sinn Féin MEP and member of the EU Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee Chris MacManus has said the Parliament has failed to embrace the need for radical reform of the fiscal rules, by adopting a  conservative position in a report voted this week.

MacManus said:

“I am very disappointed that the report adopted today (the Marques Report) is so unambitious in calling for reform of the fiscal rules. It is widely recognised that in the new reality of increased debt that simply restoring the rules tomorrow would be a disaster. There now exists an opportunity for radical reform.”

“Radical reform means allowing Member States make the essential investments in physical and social infrastructure as well as the investment necessary to adapt to the climate challenge. Instead the report called for only the bare minimum in changes and ultimately a return to the same set of rules that justified so much austerity and hardship. Sinn Féin rejects a return to the old normal of austerity as the only solution to economic problems.”

“Even the idea of a “golden rule” that would allow some spending to be exempt has been watered down to the point of being next to useless.”

MacManus concluded, “The report fails to imagine anything but greater and greater centralisation and empowerment on unelected bodies like the EU Commission to oversee economic plans of elected governments. This is a missed opportunity but it need not be the end. With the rules suspended until 2023, progressive opinion must push for radical reforms not a return to the austerity rules.” ENDS