Despite a series of “historic crises”, the EU economy is “stronger than five years ago”, European Commission President von der Leyen said on Tuesday (23 April) speaking to MEPs to whom she outlined the successes of his mandate.
In her last speech to the current European Parliament before the European elections in June which will see her as the leading candidate of the European People’s Party (EPP), von der Leyen also presented her agenda for the next five years.
“The Covid-19 health crisis and the war in Ukraine, with a made-in-Russia energy crisis, could have turned into a dramatic economic and social crisis. But they didn’t do it,” he told MEPs.
Standing at “over 75%”, employment is currently at an all-time high, the EU chief executive said, while unemployment is at “historic low, less than 6%” and inflation is approaching “close to our 2%”. objective,” he added.
Policies, including support to mitigate unemployment risks in an emergency (SURE) and NextGenerationEU joint loan programmes, as well as the REPowerEU package to accelerate renewable energy development, have helped the bloc strengthen its economic resilience and social, he said.
“We’ve been through hell and high water. But in many ways we have emerged stronger than five years ago,” said von der Leyen.
The Capital Market Union could cover three quarters of the transition costs
For the next five years, von der Leyen stressed the need to press ahead with increasing private investment in the bloc, arguing that the capital markets union (CMU) could raise 470 billion euros a year if strengthened.
“This is the additional private investment we could raise each year if we completed the CMU,” von der Leyen said.
The figure amounts to three-quarters of what the Commission had previously calculated would be needed each year to finance the combined green and digital transition (€620 billion) – and the entire financing needed for the green transition alone based on 2020 calculations.
Regarding progress on the CMU, von der Leyen hailed last week’s Special Council on Competitiveness as marking “a turning point”.
“We now have a clear mandate to move forward on three vital issues,” he added, referring to the harmonization of insolvency rules, the creation of cross-border retail savings products and the strengthening of market supervision at the European level.
On Friday (19 April), EU leaders failed to reach an agreement on the centralization of supervision under the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), but asked the Commission to evaluate a possible move towards a mechanism single supervision.
“The Commission has the task of strengthening European-level supervision of the most important market players. So there is a clear path forward,” von der Leyen said.
“If we want to finance the new industrial revolution of our times, we must mobilize European private capital. And now is the time to turn political will into action.”
EPP reprimanded for ‘opening the door to the far right’
The leaders of the political groups that support von der Leyen, however, do not fully share her optimism.
Manfred Weber, leader of von der Leyen’s centre-right EPP group, said the current “mandate was not good” when it came to reducing the bureaucratic burden on businesses.
He argued that “the increase in bureaucracy” is due to “the thought that the regulatory framework is better than having faith in those who are creating the economic success stories we want”.
Iratxe García Pérez, president of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), accused Weber of having “opened the door to the far right” by working on multiple occasions with parties at the right end of the political spectrum.
Given the expected political shift in the next legislative mandate towards improving the business environment, García Pérez also warned against the transformation of Europe into “a free trade area without a soul, without conscience, without political will”.
French MEP Valerie Hayer of the liberal Renew group – the third group that forms the “von der Leyen majority”, together with the S&D and EPP – warned that “80% of the production of our medicines is in Asia” and that “ the green transition depends on the situation in the rest of the world.”
“It’s time to end this strategic dependence,” Hayer said.
Polish nationalists in election campaign mode
The harshest criticism, however, came from Polish MEP Dominik Tarczynski, speaking for the nationalist group ECR, who said the party would try to stop the Green Deal “madness” after the European elections.
“You mentioned youth unemployment, let’s talk about facts and numbers,” he said. “Spain: 28.4%, Sweden 21%, Italy 20.4%, Greece 17.4%, France 16.9%”.
Tarczynski added that Poland’s previous conservative nationalist government – which ruled the country for eight years, until former EU Council President Donald Tusk took the helm of a new coalition government last December – “left Poland in excellent shape.” When the previous PiS (ECR) government left office, youth unemployment in Poland stood at 12.3%.
“After these elections we will make Europe great again,” Tarczynski said.
[a cura di Anna Brunetti]
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