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'More Money' is not the answer to Europe's crisis

Tuesday, 31st May 2011

A temporary committee set up to investigate the causes of the economic crisis is mistakenly calling for more EU integration to prevent a future crisis, says Roger Helmer, Conservative MEP for the East Midlands.

The parliament set up a temporary committee (the CRIS committee) to investigate the causes of the economic crisis and to make proposals on how future problems can be averted. Among the proposals from the CRIS committee are some positive suggestions for completing the EU's Single Market and achieving the EU's so-called 2020 strategy for making the European economy more competitive. However, the report also calls for national contributions to the EU to increase to between five and ten percent of national GDP. It also calls for EU taxes and a common consolidated tax base. The report's premise is that more EU integration would have prevented the crisis.

The ECR Group, the Conservative group in the parliament, voted against the report.

Roger Helmer said:

"MEPs are arguing that if only the EU had control of taxation and social policies then this crisis would not have happened. We agree that there needs to be better economic governance in the Member States, and better control of national deficits, but putting national governments into an economic straitjacket is not the answer.

"The answer is not 'more Europe', but better economic governance by national treasuries."

"It is a pity that while seeking compromises between political groups, the committee has failed to set out any serious suggestions on ways to improve economic governance, implement responsible budgetary policies and reduce government and EU spending."