20 Amendments of Manon AUBRY related to 2024/2112(INI)
Amendment 39 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital A a (new)
Recital A a (new)
A a. whereas Country-Specific Recommendations in the framework of the European Semester tend to incentivize cuts in social services and social protection instead of promoting the increase of public revenues; whereas from the introduction of the European Semester in 2011 till 2018, the Commission recommended 63 times that governments cut spending on healthcare or privatise health services;
Amendment 54 #
Motion for a resolution
Recital B a (new)
Recital B a (new)
B a. whereas the 3% deficit-to-GDP and 60% debt-to-GDP reference values are arbitrary numbers invented in the early eighties without sound economic rationale; whereas the prevailing economic conditions back then were significantly different from those prevailing today;
Amendment 81 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. Notes that, in the last few years, the EU has demonstrated a high degree of resilience in the face of major shocks, among other factors, thanks to a coordinated policy response; further recalls that promoting sustainable growth in a sustained manner means promoting responsible fiscal policies, structural reforms and investments that increase productivity the Commission's Country-Specific Recommendations in the framework of the European Semester made recurring requests for reduction in public spending, and that the Commission has specifically targeted pensions, healthcare provision, wage growth, job security and unemployment benefits; notes that, in the last few years, the EU has faced major shocks, and that the negative impact of these shocks on the most vulnerable has been reinforced by the austerity policies inspired and incentivized by those recommendations of the Commission; further recalls that promoting well-being means promoting fair and long- term oriented fiscal policies and investments;
Amendment 91 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1 a (new)
Paragraph 1 a (new)
1 a. Notes that the Commission has engaged in significant overreach through the European Semester process when it comes to public policy areas that legally fall under the competence of the Member States under the TFEU, such as pensions and the provision of healthcare;
Amendment 93 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. Believes that overcoming competitive and geopolitical challenges will require the transfer of expenditure to the EU level in certain policy areas related to European public goods to increase the efficiency of overall public expenditure; welcomes the Union’s commitment to increasing its spending efficiency and investments in overall defence capabilities to match its needs in the context of rising threats and security challenges;
Amendment 108 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 3
Paragraph 3
3. Highlights the fact that a consistent and comprehensive industrial policy is vital to incprease investments inrve the EU’'s innovaproduction capacity, while preserving competitiveness and the integrity of the single market;jobs and the ability to cater for ecologically and socially useful goods, regrets that in the context of a general reduction of public spending, multinational companies have throughout the years benefited from significant amounts of public money without any obligation attached, regarding for instance the preservation of local jobs, local production, ecological objectives or the limitation of the revenue of shareholders and of the income of executives.
Amendment 177 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 a (new)
Paragraph 8 a (new)
8 a. Recalls that the temporary suspension of the fiscal rules during the Covid-19 crisis demonstrated that they were not fit for situations where Member States have to cope with major economic turmoil, recalls that this suspension did not lead to further economic degradation but, to the contrary, gave Member States new room for manoeuvre, recalls further that the revised economic governance framework is still not suited to prevent and deal with future crises that the EU will eventually face, starting from the ecological crisis; underlines that if any new goals should have been agreed in the new economic governance framework, they should have reflected current economic realities and been directed towards ecological, social and well-being concerns; deplores that this is not the case;
Amendment 182 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 b (new)
Paragraph 8 b (new)
8 b. Recalls that fiscal rules have in the past incentivized governments of Member States to carry out fiscal adjustments detrimental to long-term investments, contributing to a drop of total public investment as share of GDP during the decade 2011-2020 following the financial crisis; stresses that public investment is crucial to guarantee a high level of citizens’ well-being, address existing and new social needs and foster the transition to a fair and sustainable economy; notes that at the scale of the EU the additional investments needed in the decarbonisation of the economy, in social infrastructures such as health, education, social housing and in the maintenance of public infrastructures amount to at least EUR 520 billion, EUR 142 billion, and EUR 190 billion per year respectively, the majority of which should come from public sources to support a fair and democratic transition; regrets that the revised economic governance framework not only fails to incentivize such public investment but also hinders them;
Amendment 187 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 c (new)
Paragraph 8 c (new)
8 c. Recalls that failure to mitigate and adapt to climate change fast enough resulting from under-investment or delayed investments will not only have catastrophic human consequences but will also be much more costly in sheer economic terms, hence contradicting the very purpose of the fiscal rules which is to support sound public finances.
Amendment 188 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 d (new)
Paragraph 8 d (new)
8 d. Regrets that the revised economic governance framework fails to enhance social progress and convergence and to foster the ecological transition, reiterates that instead of focussing on irrelevant economic indicators and pursuing endless debt and deficit reduction, the EU economic governance framework should aim at eradicating poverty and inequalities, provide a high-level of social protection, qualitative public services, individual and collective well-being through the fulfilment of essential needs of all citizens; and ecological planning;
Amendment 191 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8 e (new)
Paragraph 8 e (new)
8 e. Believes that instead of promoting harmful budgetary cuts and structural reforms in order to reach the debt and deficit targets prescribed by the Stability and Growth Pact, the EU economic governance should favour and facilitate the collection by Member States and at EU level of additional resources through fair taxation, in particular taxes on the wealthiest and multinational companies, taxes on ecologically harmful products and services, the cancellation of ineffective and unfair tax and social contributions exemptions, the fight against tax dodging and tax evasion of rich individuals and multinational companies; highlights, for example, that the EUR 60 billion in budgetary cuts proposed by the French government for the 2025 budget exactly equate to the annual cost of tax allowances granted to wealthy individuals and multinational corporations by the French government since 2017;
Amendment 219 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11 a. Notes that the debt sustainability analysis (DSA) underpinning the trajectory that serves as a reference for the elaboration of national medium-term fiscal-structural plans and budgetary plans is dependent on arbitrary assumptions over 14 to 17 years in the future and relies on an outdated macroeconomic model that does not acknowledge the embeddedness of economic activities in the biosphere, and therefore does not take into account their increasing exposure to climate change, resource scarcity, environmental degradation and natural disasters in the future; considers that this highly problematic feature of the DSA will lead to misguided perceptions of economic risks and misguided economic projections that will in turn influence the whole economic governance;
Amendment 223 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 b (new)
Paragraph 11 b (new)
11 b. Recalls that debt sustainability depends on many factors beyond the mere quantitative debt-to-GDP ratio and that financial markets are less concerned by the debt stock than the overall resilience and strength of a country’s economy, is of the opinion that anticipation of negative reactions from financial markets to high debt ratios should not be used to legitimate the perpetuation of arbitrary debt targets and their usual corollary : budget cuts, under-financing of public services and unfair structural reforms weakening social protection and workers' rights ;
Amendment 243 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14 a (new)
Paragraph 14 a (new)
14 a. Regrets that in order to comply with the revised economic governance rules, governments of Member States, in the forefront of which France, have committed in their national fiscal- structural and budgetary plans to reducing public expenditure and to implement structural reforms; deplores that these commitments have already or will in the near future translate into concrete measures deeply affecting the population, such as the reform of the pension system, the reform of the unemployment scheme, the decrease in healthcare reimbursements, job cuts in public administrations like public education, leading to the general degradation of public services; warns that these economic policies aiming at complying with the objectives of the European Semester will have harmful and long-lasting impacts on the people and on the collective capacity to cope with the ecological crisis while at the same time failing to achieve the deficit and debt reduction for which they were intended;
Amendment 249 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15
Paragraph 15
Amendment 260 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
Amendment 280 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 a (new)
Paragraph 17 a (new)
17 a. Calls on the EU institutions and decision-makers to acknowledge the evidence that cuts to public spending have a contractionary impact on the economy and to reject this approach;
Amendment 282 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 17 b (new)
Paragraph 17 b (new)
17 b. Recalls that the International Monetary Fund (IMF), long-time supporter of austerity and structural adjustments, acknowledges that fiscal consolidation is not effective, on average, at lowering debt-to-GDP ratios;
Amendment 292 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
Amendment 304 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 19
Paragraph 19