28 Amendments of Pervenche BERÈS related to 2008/2334(INI)
Amendment 48 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 1
Paragraph 1
1. welcomes the Commission's prompt initiative to launch a European economic recovery plan (Recovery Plan) as a reaction to the serious ongoing downturn; regrets, however, that the Community dimension of that proposal amounts to only 15 % of the budget for the recovery programme;
Amendment 57 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 2
Paragraph 2
2. stresses that the top priority of the Recovery Plan must be to protect citizens of the Union from the effects of the financial and economic crisis, as they are the most strongly affected whether as workers, as members of households, or as entrepreneurs;
Amendment 70 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 4
Paragraph 4
4. recommends, as an essential requirement for effectiveness, that the coordination of national recovery plans allows for each programme to be tailored to each country's specific needs, taking into account the common interest, the common strategies defined in terms of fight against climate change and the assurance of the strongest possible multiplier effect, namely on employment;
Amendment 87 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 8
Paragraph 8
8. welcomes the short-term measures adopted to return confidence to the financial system; recalls that those emergency measures are insufficient to tackle the fundamental problems at the source of the crisis, namely global imbalances, excessive risk- taking, leveraging, and rewarding short- termism;
Amendment 97 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 9
Paragraph 9
9. restates that safeguarding the savings of, and credit provision for, individuals and undertakings, including SMEs, are the overriding justifications for the exceptional public intervention in the financial system; reminds Member State governments of their responsibility and accountability to parliaments in the use of public money for rescue plans and strongly recommends that a set of adequate incentives and sanctions be introduced and coordinated at EU level to ensure the achievement of such goals;
Amendment 101 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 10
Paragraph 10
10. recalls the necessity for regulators and appropriate Member States' authorities to scrutinise the banking and bankers' activities over the last months in depth, so as to determine whether criminal behaviour contributed to the banking meltdown and to ensure that the public intervention and monetary policy decisions, in terms of interest rates, has been able to reverse the credit squeeze;
Amendment 104 #
Motion for a resolution
Subtitle 2
Subtitle 2
Amendment 106 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11
Paragraph 11
11. insists on the need for conditionality to be attached to the banking sector rescue plans in terms of dividend distribution, remuneration policy, provision of credit, lending conditions, restructuring of the sector, activities in off-shore centres and protection of social policy terms;
Amendment 108 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 11 a (new)
Paragraph 11 a (new)
11a. believes that the development of microcredit, which is recognised as an efficient tool with a strong multiplier effect, should be encouraged, in particular by making it a requirement for commercial banks that have benefited from public support;
Amendment 112 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 13
Paragraph 13
13. calls on the Commission to produce a clear analysis of the impact of the rescue package on the competitiveness of the financial sector; and the functioning of the interbank market; calls on the Commission to establish interdisciplinary teams, including expertise from the Commission Directorates General for Competition, Economic and Financial Affairs, and Internal Market and Services, the three Level 3 supervisors, and the European System of Central Banks, in order to pool knowledge and know how and to ensure that there will be balanced impartial high-quality and timely judgements across the Member States;
Amendment 117 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 14
Paragraph 14
14. considers that the European Central Bank (ECB) has a role to play as regards monitoring the macro-economicprudential and financial stability in the European Union;
Amendment 119 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 a (new)
Paragraph 15 a (new)
Amendment 120 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 15 b (new)
Paragraph 15 b (new)
15b. reiterates its call for the Commission to analyse the effects of the behaviour of banks that moved their assets from the more recently acceded Member States after adoption of rescue plans by other Member States and to examine carefully the speculative action (short-selling) on the currencies of the more recently acceded Member States;
Amendment 121 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 16
Paragraph 16
16. encouragurgently invites the Commission urgentlyto communicate the results of those analyses to the de Larosière group and to Parliament's responsible committee and to put forward relevant proposals to tackle the issue of cross-border flows following the case of massive repatriation of funds from central Europe by western banks, which added to the economic and financial difficulties of those countries;
Amendment 133 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18
Paragraph 18
18. reaffirms that more transparency and better risk-management provide most of the solutions to further crisis-prevention and that the regulatory reform must be all- encompassing, applying to all actors and transactions in the financial markets; underlines that regulatory initiatives must cover executive remuneration, transparency, leverage, capital requirements and securitisation; reminds the Commission of its obligation to respond to Parliament's requests on the regulation of hedge funds and private equity and calls for guidelines in the area of remuneration;
Amendment 134 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18a. calls for an assessment of the measures contained in the national recovery plans as regards their immediate impact on purchasing power and social justice; believes that measures supporting the social housing sector and specifically targeting the low income sector are the most effective and should therefore be promoted;
Amendment 135 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 18 a (new)
Paragraph 18 a (new)
18a. calls for the Council to approve the proposal to give all Member States the option to apply a reduced VAT rate for labour-intensive and locally supplied services; considering their potential employment and demand- boosting effect, encourages the Council to promote a common and coordinated reduction of the VAT rates on the labour-intensive and locally supplied services, as well as on energy efficient goods, in order to have a multiplier effect;
Amendment 150 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 21
Paragraph 21
21. underlines the need to guarantee minimum living standards for all citizens of the Union and calls for adequate emergency measures to be taken; calls for social policies to be adapted to cope with the recession, supporting active labour market policies, living conditions (in particular in the social housing market and access to quality public services) and paying special attention to the most vulnerable members of society;
Amendment 156 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 22
Paragraph 22
22. calls on the Commission urgently to assess the recession risks affecting industrial sectors across Europe in order pro-actively to interveneto intervene pro-actively at European Union level, if needed;
Amendment 181 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 31 a (new)
Paragraph 31 a (new)
31a. calls for pro-active guidance by the Commission on the National Reform Programs in light of its growth forecasts;
Amendment 182 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 32
Paragraph 32
32. calls for adequate detailed criteria and standards to be developed for close monitoring and permanent reassessment of the effectiveness of the recovery plans by the Commission, especially as regards the reality of the announced investments, bearing in mind that the full extent of the crisis cannot yet be totally assessed;
Amendment 194 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34 - indent 2
Paragraph 34 - indent 2
- the establishment of a binding framework for Member States within which they consult each other and the Commission before taking major economic policy decisions, based on a common understanding of problems and priorities while accepting some national specificities;
Amendment 196 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 34 - indent 5
Paragraph 34 - indent 5
- the strengthening of the economic governance of the euro area in line with the recommendations set out in its resolution on the EMU@10;
Amendment 198 #
Motion for a resolution
Subtitle before paragraph 35
Subtitle before paragraph 35
European Invetstment Bank and Eurobonds
Amendment 207 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36
Paragraph 36
36. calls on Member States to consider Eurobonds as a low-costn appropriate financing instrument for major European political priorities; stresses that issuing common euro area bonds would reduce the spreads and attract domestic and foreign savings; as they would contribute to the smooth financing of government action and render the euro area a more attractive and competitive location for international capital;
Amendment 209 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 36 a (new)
Paragraph 36 a (new)
36a. stresses that issuing joint government bonds to cover public debt up to 60 % of the budget, as referred to in the revised Stability and Growth Pact, thus ensuring solidarity and surveillance, would reduce the spreads and allow the euro to play a stabilising role as a global currency; calls on the Council and the Commission to set up a task-force urgently in order to decide on an appropriate institutional framework to that end; strongly urges the Commission and the Eurogroup to consider such a proposal;
Amendment 217 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 39
Paragraph 39
39. strongly calls for the European Union to play a leading role in international flora, notably in the Financial Stability Forum (FSF) and International Monetary Fund (IMInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Financial Stability Forum (FSF), and at the coming meetings of the G20; considers it especially important to strengthen the multilateral surveillance of currency areas and financial market regulation, notably as concerns hedge funds and closing regulatory and tax havenhavens and off-shore centres; recalls that, in times of free global capital flows, convergence is at the heart of a true level playing field and of a comprehensive regulatory and supervisory framework;
Amendment 223 #
Motion for a resolution
Paragraph 42
Paragraph 42
42. instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the European Central Bank, the European Investment Bank, the European Economic and Social Committee and the president of the Eurogroup.