Members of national parliaments charged the Union's leaders with not doing enough to counter the world economic crisis. As French National Assembly member Pierre Lequiller pointed out, the measures to tackle the crisis at EU level are "difficult to observe", while those taken at national level are not harmonised.
Lequiller also compared the bold recovery measures pushed through the US legislature by President Barack Obama after less than a month in office to what he called a "shy" EU response.
Commission President José Manuel Barroso did not challenge this statement. "Obviously, our recovery plan cannot be like America's," Barroso said.
He further elaborated that this is "because we are 27 countries: some are members of the euro zone, some are not". "We have countries with serious recession, we have countries with positive growth levels. We have countries receiving funds under emergency plans, from the EU as well. Politically, but also intellectually, it's not easy to come up with a common programme covering 27 different scenarios. But in spite of that, I believe the results we have been able to achieve are positive," he further stated, ending on a more cheerful note.
But the Commission president rebuffed criticism that the Union did not find greater means to respond to the crisis.
"Let's be honest – when the EU budget was decided, the countries from the '1% club' [which insisted that the Union's budget should not exceed 1% of the bloc's GDP] said 'no more than one per cent,'" Barroso recalled, advising MPs to turn to their national governments for clear answers.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek, who currently holds the rotating EU presidency, again spoke out strongly against protectionism, but also attacked recently aired plans to introduce euro bonds to boost the ailing eurozone economy. Despite his country not being member of the euro zone, Topolánek recently said he wanted to be a "guardian" of the euro (EurActiv 10/02/09).
"I would warn against the [euro bonds] idea, against the issue of new bonds, because we are going to run into difficulty repaying government debt. That would upset the stability of the euro zone, or could weaken the euro zone, and we will be picking up the pieces for ten to fifteen years to come," Topolánek told the parliamentarians.
The Czech prime minister advised the MPs themselves not to make big promises reagrding the coming European elections in June.
"I don't want to point at you in this chamber, but I warn you, ahead of the [European] elections, to be careful what you promise to people. You can't tell people they'll be better off after the elections," said Topolánek.
