The internal devaluation policies promoted by the European Commission were criticised by a number of MEPs, during the joint economic affairs and employment committee debate.
On 18 June, MEP Sven Giegold (Greens/EFA, DE) said that Commission’s country-specific reforms (CSR) were based in a fragmented and inadequate internal devaluation theory. Moreover, Giegold stressed that the CSR didn’t include an overview with hard figures on how reforms are progressing in the EU Member States.
However, the committees of the European Parliament (EP) welcomed the decision of the Commission to grant more time in a number of EU Member States to adjust their macro-economic figures. France, Spain and Poland are granted with two years time, while Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal acquired an extra year to meet their macro-economic targets. Still, MEP Anni Podimata (S&D, EL) emphasised that Commission proposals were not equal for all Member States. Podimata said that Commission’s CSR are much stricter for small member states than big ones and that those receiving aid, like Greece or Portugal, are made to undergo “undemocratic” decision-making.
On the contrary, the head of the debate MEP Sharon Bowles (ALDE, UK), didn’t focus on the internal devaluation policies but she preferred to speak about the policy making process of the CSR. The recommendations, “will be better implemented and the structural reforms will be accepted more readily by society, if they are decided more democratically, by involving the European and national parliaments,” Bowles stressed.
Moreover, the MEP Pablo Zalba Bidegain (EPP, ES) asked for a significant change in the direction of the reforms. According to the Spanish MEP, the reforms should focus on restoring lending to the real economy and helping SMEs out of the financial trap of costly loans, instead of solely focusing on the macro-economic figures.
Last but not least, French MEP, Pervenche Berès (S&D, FR) added, that tax reform should restrict short-term speculative capital movements and encourage the long-term investments while she underlined the lack of democratic accountability in the CSR process. “The CSRs should have been presented to Parliament as soon as they were published on 29 May", she stressed.
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