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Thursday, 14 November 2013
Mr. Speaker, ladies and gentlemen MPs,
Greece is preparing to assume the Presidency of the Council of the
European Union for the fifth time since acceding to what was then the
EEC. So we have long experience of carrying out Presidencies.
Our first Presidency came shortly after our accession. It was the first Zappeion Presidency. Then there was the Presidency that culminated in the Rhodes Summit and left strong, positive impressions. The third Greek Presidency came to be identified with a wave of EU enlargement, the most critical aspect of which, for us, was that it marked the beginning of the process of Cyprus’ accession to the EU, with the Corfu Summit, which saw the first Summit Meeting between the EU and the Republic of Cyprus.
The fourth Presidency was the Presidency of 2003, which culminated in the Thessaloniki-Halkidiki Summit and the approval of what was, in the end, the failed European Constitution, which was not ratified and thus led to the transitional Lisbon Treaty.
Thus, this Presidency may not hold the charm that a presidency holds for a new EU member state, but it does give us the opportunity to point up once again Greece’s institutional presence in the EU, to once again promote, as the presiding country, the physiognomy of a Greece that is an institutionally equal member of the EU, beyond the crisis, beyond the Memorandum debate, beyond the debate over our fiscal and financial needs – debates that do Greeks and Greece an injustice, that limit the horizon on which the public debate on Europe is being carried out here.
Within the new institutional framework of the Lisbon Treaty, the rotating six-month Presidency of the Council of the EU has a limited scope compared to the old presidency. Up until the Lisbon Treaty, the presiding country had broad scope for initiatives of a political nature, mainly on the major issues concerning foreign policy and enlargement policy. Now the Presidency is unquestionably limited by the existence of the permanent presidencies.
The Permanent President of the European Council plays a very strong role, determining the agenda to a great extent. In any case, he presides over a Council that meets in Brussels and not in the country that holds the rotating presidency.
The EU High Representative and Vice President of the European Commission, currently Lady Ashton, has her own very important competencies. She presides over the Foreign Affairs Council, She coordinates the external action of the EU, presiding over the Foreign Affairs Council of the Defence Ministers’ configuration – not just the Foreign Ministers’ configuration – and heading the European Defence Agency.
Moreover, the permanent presidency of the Eurogroup radically shifts the institutional state of affairs within which the broadened cooperation of the eurozone takes place in the EU. Because the permanent President of the Eurogroup – the second now, following Jean-Claude Juncker – unquestionably has the potential to impact the climate in the meetings and discussion, even though the correlation is inexorable, deriving from fiscal data and the economic power of the member states of the Eurozone.
So the picture in the Eurogroup is very simply the picture of a Germany that guides and decides, with the 16 other countries called upon, more or less, to fall into step, without honoring even the institutional pretenses of the Council of the EU: ECOFIN, the configuration of Finance Ministers.
Of course, the rotating six-month Presidency presides over the General Affairs Council, so it has general competency on all the issues that are not in the individual, specialized Council configurations. It also presides over important configurations. All of them are important – some are obviously very, very important, like ECOFIN and, of course, the Justice and Home Affairs Council, which deals with a subject that is a top priority for all European societies in the current state of affairs.
The fifth Greek Presidency has another peculiarity, to which the Deputy Speaker of Parliament referred earlier. It is essentially limited in parliamentary duration by the fact that these six months are the run-up to the European elections in May. The proceedings of the current European Parliament will be wound up in April, so there will be less time, but there will be greater intensity due to the debate that is to be carried out during these months – on a pan-European level – on the current state of Europe and the future of Europe.
The European Parliament has already shaped the institutional framework within which this election run-up is to take place, pointing up the role of the European political parties, calling on all the member states to respect and point up the role of the European political parties. And of course it is vital that we perceive – through this process, as the country holding the Presidency – how longstanding national strategic forces intersect with forces of an ideological, political and value-oriented nature as they are expressed through the European or national political parties.
In reality, these six months are also a challenge for us, because we must ensure the institutional and political conditions for a substantial dialogue within each member state, as well as on a pan-European level, regarding the European civil society for the future of Europe.
Our Presidency succeeds that of Lithuania, which, for obvious geographical and historical reasons, puts great emphasis on the Eastern Partnership, and will be followed by the Italian Presidency. On the level of Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, European Affairs Minister and Speakers of Parliament, in order to shape a European year, through the successive presidencies of Greece and Italy, a Mediterranean year, which will put emphasis on certain priorities that in reality point up a notion rather than a country.
Because the European south is not a geographical notion. In reality it is a political notion. It may be that the southern countries of the EU, and particularly the Mediterranean coastal countries, are parties to this notion – a different, alternative notion regarding the future of Europe – but other countries, countries beyond the European south, share in this notion; countries that have experienced the difficulties of the crisis, political forces that want to rally round this approach, and intellectual forces that always play a vital role – should always play a role – in the debate on the future of Europe.
The Greek Presidency brings the presidency to the country that has become identified with the crisis, the laboratory of the crisis; the country that has suffered the most extreme repercussions. Thus, in reality the Greek experience is what points up the obsolete framework within which the EU and the Eurozone are moving, which have been constructed institutionally as a result of a repeated political volunteerism, because all the major steps toward European integration, in reality, were major political decisions, without the requisite economic preparation and social assimilation necessarily having been present.
But it became apparent that all this preparation was for ‘normal’ conditions of temperature and pressure. No provision was made for a Europe in crisis. There were no real mechanisms for early warning and intervention. And this of course resulted in a deep institutional crisis, mainly on the level of the Eurozone, with the International Monetary Fund’s being welcomed into, established in, the heart of Europe, which is the Eurozone.
The IMF, with the participation of which the troika – not provided for by the treaties – was set up, was not installed in the heart of Europe for Greece or because Greece wanted it to be. It was installed here because the governments of the large and powerful countries of the Eurozone – and particularly the German government – wanted to show, both politically and institutionally, profound resentment and distrust of the role and capabilities of the European Commission.
In reality, the forming of this configuration – the troika – brings us face to face with much larger problems of a wide-ranging strategic nature. It brings us face to face with the matter of the Euroatlantic economic space, with the way EU-U.S. relations are regulated. Because if we want to draw an institutional and historical comparison, a parallelism, we should consider that just as NATO has existed in Europe since the Second World War as a fundamental pillar of European security and defence policy, in the same way, paradoxically, the IMF has been called on in recent years to ensure the monetary and economic security of the EU, with all that that entails for the manner in which we function in the Eurozone and the manner in which the Eurozone and the EU must consider their future.
The future of a continent that has not come together, politically or economically, in a complete and comprehensive manner. Because Europe continues to be much larger as a continent than the EU. The degree of monetary integration is much greater than the degree of economic and political integration. Europe is aging. As an economic power, Europe maintains comparative advantages and sees itself as being at the center of global developments, but that is not the case. There are new players, now interrelations, new markets. There are phenomena that cannot be assimilated by the EU, which to a great extent is possessed of an internal contradiction; a contradiction that we see but do not admit the existence of. That the internal borders are falling, a single market is taking being shaped, but that market is putting up very high walls between itself and other economic entities on a global level. Thus, notions that are extremely hostile to the endeavor of European integration within the EU operate in the EU’s external relations on an economic and commercial level. But in spite of this, the EU – despite having permanent members on the Security Council – has not gained the international role it deserves or that, historically, it should play in regions that are European or very close to Europe, as we had the opportunity to experience in our region – the Balkans, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, the Arab world – over the past 20 years
So it is of very great importance that we talk during these six months of the Greek Presidency to all the organs, in all the fora, in a frank manner, raising the EU’s political issue. So the Greek Presidency’s great challenge – to the extent that we have a say – is to secure the terms of the re-politicization of this conversation, which has been underway in a supposedly technical manner for years now in the EU, and this “dries out” the thinking, which has become one-dimensional.
You will allow me to say, in my capacity as President of Pasok and Deputy Prime Minister of the government, and not as Foreign Minister, that what I am saying – as I said before the plenary a few days ago, that during these difficult years of the crisis and the negotiations, we have been dealing with a politically conservative Europe in which a specific, stereotypical economic thinking prevails – is the absolute truth.
And this is the case for all the countries, including those that have governments and parliaments that believe on a national level in these outlooks. So it is imperative that we capitalize on this opportunity to once again promote the need for institutional equality, real solidarity, which means redistribution. Thus, the need for us to talk in different terms about the community budget, in reality about redistribution mechanisms that go beyond the usual limits of the EU’s structural funds.
And naturally it is an opportunity for us to diagnose the new interrelations. There are two reasons why it isn’t easy for new interrelations to be shaped in the EU. One reason is that there are national strategies that are served by the governments of each member state, regardless of that government’s political identity. The second reason is that, when all is said and done, the election cycles in the EU are formulated in such a way that there are always upcoming elections, successions, and a large rolling coalition. There are no clear stances or clear fronts, not even in the traditional political spectrum between the two major political families: the People’s Party and the Socialist Party.
So this is the framework within which we will be able to respond when our country is criticized unfairly, as has been happening in recent days. Because an unfair discussion has started up again; a discussion that belittles the sacrifices of the Greek people; a discussion that pretends to ignore our fiscal achievements. And as I said a few days ago, addressing the American-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce, we are not asking for a political negotiation.
We are asking for informed political collocutors in order to carry out an economic negotiation. But an economic negotiation based on the real data, the dynamic of numbers, and this responds to the litany of terms – the sustainability of the debt, the fiscal gap and the funding gap – so that we can lend meaning to a discussion that currently does nothing more than undermine our efforts toward the recovery of the real economy. But because this discussion does not have real depth, I am optimistic that it will end quickly, because everyone will understand what we are saying, which is so obvious.
Because we have the experience of four previous presidencies, and because Greece must not give anyone an opportunity to accuse it of not having realized what has changed following the crisis, the presidency will, technically, be frugal, functional and as effective as possible. Its action will be focused, naturally, in the institutions of the EU; that is, in Brussels, Strasbourg and Luxembourg, as well as in Athens, with very few things being carried out outside of Athens – Zappeion, mainly, which is the presidency’s point of reference.
We are trying to minimize the cost, complying with all the rules of transparency, without additional personnel, very little in the way of additional personnel. We will use our existing resources and the Foreign Ministry’s new attaches and liaisons with other Ministries. We will use volunteers. We will use institutional grants which can reasonably be used to cover certain of the Greek Presidency’s needs.
The cultural dimension of the presidency is important in the host country, in Brussels and Strasbourg, and in Rome, to which we will hand on the Presidency. But the cultural dimension will be very strictly controlled. And of course the communication management will be such as to promote the Presidency’s political dimension, with the collaboration of the Foreign Ministry and the Secretariat General for Communication.
I now come to the substance: the general political priorities of the Presidency, as decided upon by the Ministerial Council and presented to our institutional collocutors in the EU. The priorities are, of course, to a very great extent obligatory, because there is a flow to the agenda of the EU organs, particularly the Council. But room is always given to the Presidency to color the agenda and the priorities of the EU.
The first priority is Europe’s need to overcome the crisis, to rethink its competitiveness and its growth model. We need to have a new conversation about the European social state, about a Europe that can withstand the pressures of international competition through innovation and its very strong intellectual capital.
So the first priority is that of growth/employment and social cohesion. This means that we will endeavor to promote those community texts and initiatives that are linked to our own national needs. The big problem is liquidity, credit for enterprises, broad investment mainly from the large volume of Greek SMEs. We had the opportunity to discuss this this morning with the President of the European Investment Bank, Mr. Hoyer and his staff, with whom we met at the Foreign Ministry.
The reality is that we must avoid a new danger that has arisen in the EU and the international debate: creditless and jobless growth; growth without credit and without the creation of new jobs. The credit problem is a problem of the cost of money, interest rates. It is a problem that, in reality, is linked to the Greek Presidency’s second priority: Eurozone and EU economic governance.
It is a problem that, in reality, is linked to new, non-bank institutions that will lower the average cost of money and add available funds for this to happen. But growth alone will not resolve the problem of unemployment. Not in any country in Europe. Much less in Greece, where additional interventions are needed. Interventions, that is, beyond the normal functioning of the economy, even if the economy stabilizes at high growth rates at some point. Over 2.5% according to the study that governs the Greek programme.
So the programmes for reducing unemployment – the European Social Fund, the manner in which we will use the social funds, the NSRF in the new period – are very important. All of these often come up against bureaucratic obstacles. And it is important, as the Presidency, to be able to overcome these obstacles through various Council configurations and meetings with the Commission.
And of course the number-one issue is youth unemployment and the initiatives around which yesterday’s Summit meeting in Paris moved. The thing is, though, that the budgets are very small, and we really do have need of this funding here in Greece. So the negotiations are open, because an intervention of large dimensions is needed. And we insist on this matter and want to utilize the NSRF resources to produce this result.
The second priority, which is also compulsory, because the procedures are underway, is the integration and deepening of economic governance in the Eurozone and the EU. I say this because responsibility for these issues lies to a great extent with ECOFIN, or may even be intergovernmental when the member states of the Eurozone operate on their own. The big issue is the banking union. An important step has already been taken with the single supervisory mechanism regarding the 125 major systemic banks of the EU, among which are 4 Greek systemic banks.
But this is not enough. The supervisory mechanism on its own doesn’t mean anything. What are really needed are mechanisms for confronting the operating problems of banks for resolution, where the recapitalization of banks is also needed, but this isn’t enough either. And neither will a Directive suffice, with each country implementing the same rules in a single manner, but not with community funding or through a community mechanism.
And this naturally concerns the European Deposit Guarantee Mechanism, which is something different from the Directive on Deposit Protection. The Deposit Guarantee Directive is a Directive that, in the end, forces each member state to implement their own mechanisms and fund them. We want something completely different.
Mario Mundi set the issue of the Single European Deposit Guarantee Mechanism as a condition for the Banking Union, without it functioning as a reverse dumping into the Eurozone, burdening the countries in crisis, which offer high interest rates but not the security offered by other banking systems. And after the experience of Cyprus, the parameter of deposit guarantee is of very great importance.
So it is of very great importance that we promote these views. That is, the Single Mechanism for Resolution and Recapitalization. What we want is for the ESM to take on the burden – retroactively, if possible – of bank recapitalization. No one is willing to accept this easily, because it would lighten the public debt a great deal. And of course the guarantee mechanism in a single market must function on a pan-European level.
So this is a major debate that cannot find resolution in the two Directives alone. The third priority is the one linked to the very acute problem of protection of maritime and land borders. With mobility, management of migrant flows, initiatives being taken by the Mediterranean countries, with the latest joint Greek-Maltese-Italian initiative, which in the end was co-signed by 9 countries at the latest European Council, and which is a major pending issue for us.
Funds have to be made available. Humanitarian tragedies like those of Lampedusa or Sicily must be prevented. So a lot more work and cooperation is needed with the countries of origin. Of course, all this has to be done within the framework of international law and with respect for human rights.
And to see results in the protection of your borders and respect for human rights and international law from day to day is a very demanding undertaking.
The fourth priority is the horizontal priority of comprehensive maritime policy. For a country like Greece, this is virtually self-evident, but there was also the recent Cypriot Presidency, which culminated in the Limassol Declaration on maritime policy. There is also the supplementary Cypriot initiative together with Spain to re-establish the Olive Group of EU Mediterranean countries. Comprehensive maritime policy brings everything together: security of maritime borders, blue development, energy, fisheries, tourism, protection of underwater archaeological sites, and maritime zones.
Naturally, we are collaborating with the competent Commissioner, Ms. Damanaki, and the presentation of the European Commission study on the economic benefits that will accrue for EU member states if the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea is implemented in the Mediterranean was a very important step. This is something that is of great historical importance, because when the Montego Bay Convention was being prepared in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was extensive discussion of the role of the Mediterranean, and it is very important that it become a common conviction that the declaration and delimitation of maritime zones in the Mediterranean offers added economic value, beyond political value.
This is linked with other initiatives that we have, like the declaration of the Adriatic-Ionian Macroregion in the EU. This is linked to the branch we want to be added to the TAP, so that the pipeline can carry natural gas to countries on the Adriatic as well.
Enlargement and the Western Balkans – which was the Thessaloniki Agenda – is not a priority of the Presidency, in the sense that developments have been set in motion. We want the start of the Greek Presidency to coincide with the opening of Serbia’s accession negotiations with the EU. It is very important to point up the Greek role with regard to the Euroatlantic perspective of all the countries of the Western Balkans. To a very great extent, this is linked with Greek-Albanian relations and the meetings we had: the President of the Republic the day before yesterday and myself a few days ago in Tirana. And I will be meeting here, on Friday, with the Albanian Deputy Prime Minister, who is coming for talks following what we discussed in Tirana.
Of course, it is also linked to Montenegro, which has a very good position in this process, and with the pending problems that exist with regard to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and with regard to Kosovo, of course, but there our priority is the completion of the process of the Belgrade-Pristina talks. We’ll see how they go. And we hope that the second round of local elections go as well as possible, despite the difficulties, and that the dialogue and the overall Euroatlantic perspective of our neighbourhood are safeguarded.
Of course it is obvious that, in terms of EU external relations, with regard to the Eastern Neighbourhood – which is the priority of the Lithuanian Presidency and will be the priority of the Latvian Presidency that follows Italy’s Presidency – that is why we are talking to the Latvian Foreign Minister, who was here last week – our priority is the southern neighbourhood, which also receives the bulk of the relevant funds: 2/3 are earmarked for the southern neighbourhood, with 1/3 going to the Eastern Neighbourhood, historically.
Of course, we have our own priorities there, as well as certain problems that we discussed at the last meeting of the Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee. Because there we have to talk again about Egypt, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Algeria, Tunisia, etc. Of course, on that we have the stances and initiatives that you are aware of, particularly with regard to Egypt, in which we have invested a great deal of work, and just yesterday we completed the political consultations on the level of political directors both bilaterally, Greece and Egypt, and trilaterally, Greece, Egypt and Cyprus, in Cairo.
These are the general priorities of the Presidency. It is obvious that there are individual priorities for every Council configuration. Some of these are very, very important, and I imagine we will have the opportunity to discuss them, perhaps not on the level of the European Affairs Committee, but on the level of the individual Standing Committees and through the competent Ministers.
We don’t want a Presidency that just goes through the motions, simply pushing through the Commission’s agenda or the priorities of the Council Secretariat. Of course, we will also resolve functional and administrative problems, and we will do our job as provided for in the Treaties, but we have clear political priorities – European, not national.
But the great challenge for the EU is to be able at some point to bring the national interest of each member state into line with a single European interest, which is not easy to consolidate and is not at all easy to promote among the societies and peoples of the EU.
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14/11/13
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