22.1.2016   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 24/49

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having regard to Article 225 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Articles 9 and 151 and Article 153(1)(e) thereof,

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having regard to the conclusions of the European Council of 28—29 June 2012,

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having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 136 in combination with Article 121(2) thereof,

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having regard to the Communication from the Commission of 28 November 2012 on the Annual Growth Survey 2013 (COM(2012)0750),

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having regard to Rule 48 of its Rules of Procedure,

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having regard to the report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and the opinions of the Committee on Budgets, the Committee on Regional Development and the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (A7-0032/2013),

A.

whereas the Euro area as a whole is experiencing a double-dip recession caused by excessive debt and the financial crisis;

B.

whereas the crisis has had devastating consequences for the lives of millions of Europeans, as documented by official statistics on employment: in the EU, over 8 million people have already lost their job since 2008; more than 25 million Europeans are currently out of work, of whom almost 11 million have been unemployed for over a year; unemployment is currently affecting nearly 10 million young people; in the past year alone, 2 million people lost their job;

C.

whereas the rigidity of labour market regulation in several Member States lacks the flexibility to effectively absorb shocks such as the current crisis; whereas current labour market legislation disproportionally protects insiders and adversely affects the inclusion of young people into the workforce;

D.

whereas the disparity in the unemployment rates between the Member States has grown dramatically;

E.

whereas it should be recalled that, in 2007, at the start of the crisis, the average public deficit for the euro area stood at only 0,7 %;

F.

whereas it should be recalled that, in 2007, at the start of the crisis, some of the countries which now experience the severest difficulties, had accumulated excessive current account deficits;

G.

whereas the average public deficit for the euro area peaked in 2009 at 6,3 % and since then the trend has been reversed with average public deficits in 2010 at 6,2 %, in 2011 at 4,1 % and a further decrease in the first two quarters of 2012;

H.

whereas credible commitments to growth-friendly consolidation measures are a prerequisite for any sustainable solution of the excessive debt and deficit situation of most of the Member States;

I.

whereas the crisis underlines the crucial need to launch or complete balanced, differentiated and sustainable growth enhancing structural reforms;;

J.

whereas the Single Market is a key driver for economic growth and jobs in Europe and whereas a more ambitious implementation of the Services Directive alone could provide already an estimated additional 1,8 % of GDP; whereas under the current economic circumstances, in particular, the Union cannot afford to leave such immediate growth potentials untapped; whereas a stringent transposition, implementation, application and enforcement of Single Market provisions are therefore indispensable to benefit from yet those unused and immediate potentials;

K.

whereas unsustainable debt levels have detrimental effects on the overall economic situation; whereas fiscal and macroeconomic discipline as well as coordination must be forcefully upheld and enhanced in order to prevent overall deficits and debt levels of the kind seen in Europe during the last decade from emerging, as these have had a disastrous effect regarding sustainable growth and financial stability as well as on employment in a number of Member States;

L.

whereas this fiscal tightening strategy aims at keeping public expenditure growth below the rate of growth of medium-term trend GDP;

M.

whereas Europe's future economic prosperity depends crucially on its ability to fully utilise its labour resources, also by increasing the participation of women and young people in the labour market;

N.

whereas gradual and smooth fiscal consolidation is preferable to a strategy of reducing public finance imbalances rapidly and abruptly but the state of the economy of some Member States does not leave an alternative to regain market access and see investment return;

O.

whereas HICP rates show significant differences across the EMU;

P.

whereas consolidation measures adopted by several Member States have reached an unprecedented dimension;

Q.

whereas, despite Member States' reform and consolidation efforts, eurozone sovereign bond markets remain in distress, as reflected in high spreads and interest rate volatility; whereas one of the immediate triggers and root causes of the unprecedented divergences were financial markets' concerns about the solidity of public and private finances in several Member States;

R.

whereas the competitiveness gap within the euro area has an impact on the divergences of sovereign interest rates;

S.

whereas high sovereign interest rates in certain euro area Member States are partially due to a perceived lack of credibility of their capacity of to conduct structural reforms;

T.

whereas the euro area has failed to use the overall reduction of sovereign interest rates in the first ten years of the euro to close the competitiveness gap, which amongst others has been reflected in persistently large current account deficits and rapidly increasing unit labour costs in some Member States;

U.

whereas current adjustment in certain countries would be politically, economically and socially less difficult if the positive economic climate in the first ten years of the euro had been used to adjust;

V.

whereas lending to the private sector, which is key to financing the real economy, remains weak and private credit flows are subdued in several Member States, despite the various liquidity programmes established by the ECB;

W.

whereas Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME) are the engine of the European economy and Member States should support them by reducing the administrative burden they are facing;

X.

whereas adjustment has to be perceived as credible if investment flows are to return;

Y.

whereas the contributing capacity of taxpayers is put under severe strain in several Member States; whereas the European shadow economy is estimated to represent 22,1 % of total economic activity and the resulting loss of tax to be around EUR one trillion each year; whereas simple, predictable and low tax systems improve tax compliance;

Z.

whereas the 2013 Annual Growth Survey (AGS 2013) seeks to set out the economic priorities for 2013;

AA.

whereas the growth-friendly fiscal consolidation pillar should be developed hand in hand with growth-enhancing structural reforms and the solidarity and democracy pillars in each Member State;

AB.

whereas the Single Market is the EU's key engine for growth and jobs through economies of scale and greater competition but Member States show complacency in implementing internal market legislation, particularly the services directive;

AC.

whereas each Member State needs to find national unity over a reform strategy so that it may be understood and adhered to by the people and different economic actors, thus avoiding divisions, resistance and actions based on only short-term self-interest, which threaten the achievement of set targets;

AD.

whereas competition policy based on the principles of open markets and a level playing field in all sectors is a cornerstone of the unrestricted functioning of the internal market;

1.

Welcomes the spirit of the Annual Growth Survey (AGS) 2013 as presented by the Commission; believes that it is an adequate follow up to the European Semester 2012 in general and the AGS 2012 in specific; welcomes in particular the increased clarity in country-specific strategies that the Commission has introduced by prioritizing progress in the euro area countries as well as progress in structural terms rather than nominal terms;

2.

Welcomes the recognition in the AGS 2013 that sustainable growth enhancing and green job rich sectors and activities are necessary in order to exit the crisis, stresses that the solutions specifically targeting the current sovereign and financial crisis, namely the appropriate structural reforms, should go hand-in-hand with measures that boost long-term competitiveness and growth of the European economy and regain confidence;

3.

Agrees with the Commission that growth-friendly fiscal consolidation is necessary in order to exit the crisis; recalls that the key element in the relationship between growth and consolidation is the composition of consolidation; stresses in this respect that the appropriate mix of expenditure and revenue side measures is context dependent, however consolidations based on cutting unproductive expenditure rather than on increasing revenue tend to be more lasting and more growth-enhancing in the medium term, but more recessive in the short term;

4.

Welcomes the draft provision in the ‘two pack’ regarding a more qualitative surveilance and assessment of public finances as well as cost-benefits assessments of public investments;

5.

Welcomes the draft provisions in the two pack enhancing the economic dialogue and the overall scrutiny on the Semester process of National Parliaments and the European Parliament;

6.

Deplores the lack of implementation in the Member States of policies and actions agreed at the EU level, which prevent the agreed measures from unleashing their full potential;

7.

Calls on the Commission to remain vigilant about its policy stance and adjust it according to an overall cost-benefit assessment of the policy-mix implemented across the Union, and to revise if appropriate and further clarify its policy recommendations for next year, as contained in its AGS;

8.

Urges Member States to correct excessive deficits by the deadlines set by the Council, reminds that a level of flexibility is foreseen in the 6-pack;

9.

Encourages the Member States to improve their domestic fiscal frameworks with a view to promoting efficient and sustainable fiscal policies;

10.

Underlines the fact that Member States should pursue differentiated strategies according to their budgetary situations and insists that Member States must keep their public expenditure growth below the rate of medium-term trend GDP growth;

11.

Welcomes the recognition of the role of the single market and the necessity to tackle the many barriers still in place in the services sector; reminds that there is still a lot to do to achieve a truly single European market;

12.

Calls on the Commission to monitor the situation the Member States’ are facing in the light of the severe economic downturn as set out in the revised SGP;

13.

Calls on the Commission and the Council to balance productive private and public investment needs with fiscal consolidation objectives by assessing carefully growth enhancing investment programmes in its assessment of Stability and Convergence Programmes, while fully respecting the provisions laid down in EU law; considers that growth-friendly fiscal consolidation can simultaneously put public finances on a sustainable path and restore the confidence of investors;

14.

Looks forward in that respect to the Commission report on the quality of public spending and the review of the scope for possible action within the boundaries of the EU framework regarding the qualification of investment programmes;

15.

Calls on the Commission to start developing as a matter of urgency ways to ensure that elements of sustainable fiscal discipline are in parallel followed up with concrete proposals on growth and jobs and encouraging private investments that create elements of growth, solidarity among Member States and democratic legitimacy, and the needed structural reforms, namely to reduce youth unemployment including by better matching the qualifications of young people to labour demand, combat labour market segmentation, improve the sustainability of pension systems, increase the efficiency of taxation systems, enhance competition in the relevant areas of the services sector, facilitate credit access, cut red tape, remove unnecessary layers of government and combat tax evasion; welcomes the enhanced democratic legitimacy within the European Semester; recalls the necessity to further enhance democratic legitimacy within the European Semester;

16.

Calls on the Commission and the Council to work on continually and adequately fine-tune and further improve the quality, the national specificity and the adequacy of the country-specific recommendations;

17.

Reiterates that, in order to preserve the credibility of the Annual Growth Survey and of the entire Semester process, the Council must justify its reasons should it refuse to follow the Commission’s recommendations based on the Annual Growth Survey; welcomes the ‘comply or explain’ principle introduced by the ‘six pack’ regarding country-specific recommendations, according to which the Council is publicly accountable for any changes it introduces to the Commission’s proposals, and considers that this principle should be reinforced in practice;

18.

Calls the Commission and the Council to ensure that investments in research, development and innovation are intensified and streamlined and the results are quickly turned by the public and private sectors in Europe into competitive advantage and increased productivity;

19.

Calls the Commission and the Council to intensify efforts to reduce dependency on imports of energy and raw materials in order to create a more environmentally, economically and socially sustainable Europe;

20.

Calls on the Member States to agree on a Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) as a matter of urgency, ensuring that its role is reinforced as a source of much-needed long-term investment in sustainable growth enhancing and job rich sectors and activities; stresses the importance of the structure of the EU budgets, which should foster investment in value-added areas;

21.

Calls on the Commission to come forward with a holistic approach to tackling sustainable growth towards the EU2020 objectives, which should include completing the internal market, increasing competition, a genuine European industrial policy, a robust and adequately targeted cohesion policy and the guarantee that Europe will use all its strength and influence in its external trade relations; calls on the Commission to fully exploit the sources of growth stemming from the attraction of FDI [foreign direct investment] and trade with third countries namely through deepening and expanding the Transatlantic economic relationship; such an agenda should encompass the related goals of renewing and opening the Transatlantic market, strengthening the ground rules of the international economic order, and extending the rule-based multilateral system to include new members and new areas of economic opportunities; calls also on the Commission to speed up the conclusion of ongoing free trade agreements;

22.

Welcomes the recognition of the role of the Single Market and the necessity to tackle the many barriers still in place in the services sector; reminds that there is still a lot to do to achieve a truly single European market; calls on the Commission to step up enforcement of the implementation of internal market legislation; urges Member States to fully implement internal market legislation, particularly the Services Directive;

23.

Welcomes the first report on the State of the Single Market Integration 2013 accompanying and complementing the Annual Growth Survey; emphasises that the Single Market plays a key role in restoring the competitiveness of the Union and thereby leveraging economic growth and jobs; calls on the Commission and Member States to adequately address related deficiencies in the country-specific recommendations and to strengthen the continuous and regular assessment of the implementation and enforcement of Single Market provisions for an improved economic growth;

24.

Is worried by the fact that many Member States are falling behind in terms of productivity; insists on the role of structural reforms in tackling this problem; asks the Commission to report in its next Annual Growth Survey on the monitoring of capital and resource productivity developments;

25.

Underlines that strong enforcement of an EU competition policy based on the principles of open markets and a level playing field in all sectors is a cornerstone of a successful internal market and a precondition for the creation of sustainable and knowledge-based jobs;

26.

Stresses that determined efforts by Member States to sustain public finances, at an appropriate pace, are needed but can only work if excessive macroeconomic imbalances are reduced; notes that these objectives can only be achieved simultaneously through growth in the eurozone as a whole;

27.

Takes note of the addition of a new indicator to the scoreboard for macroeconomic imbalances regarding the financial sector; deplores that the Commission did not respect the procedure foreseen in the Regulation (EU) No 1176/2011 according to which: ‘the Commission should closely cooperate with the European Parliament and the Council when drawing up the scoreboard and the set of macroeconomic and macrofinancial indicators for Member States’ and more specifically according to which ‘the Commission should present suggestions for comments to the competent committees of the European Parliament and of the Council on plans to establish and adjust the indicators and thresholds’;

28.

Reminds the Commission that in order to build interinstitutional trust and a high quality economic dialogue it is of paramount importance to respect the procedure foreseen in Regulation (EU) No 1176/2011 more faithfully in the future;

29.

Calls on the Commission and the Council to act thoroughly and quickly in order to give real substance and effectiveness to the Compact for Growth and Jobs as agreed at the European Council of 28—29 June 2012;

30.

Calls on a swift adoption of the so-called ‘2-pack’;

31.

Takes note of the entry into force of Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance (Fiscal Compact); deems that the Fiscal Compact should be transposed into secondary Union legislation as soon as possible On the basis of an assessment of the experience with its implementation and in accordance with the TEU and the TFEU;

32.

Welcomes the Commission’s ‘Action Plan to strengthen the fight against tax fraud and tax evasion’, the recommendations on ‘measures intended to encourage third countries to apply minimum standards of good governance in tax matters’ and the recommendations on ‘aggressive tax planning’ adopted by the Commission on 6 December 2012; supports the proactive stance taken by the Commission and in particular by the Commissioner for Taxation, Customs, Anti-fraud, Audit and Statistics; calls on the Member States to follow up on Commission’s recommendations, take immediate and coordinated action against tax havens and aggressive tax planning and thus guarantee a fairer distribution of the fiscal effort and increased Member States’ revenue;

33.

Considers positive that finally ‘all Member States recognise the importance of taking effective steps to fight tax evasion and fraud, also in times of budgetary constraints and of economic crisis’ as stated in the conclusions of the Economic and Monetary affairs Council of 13 November 2012;

34.

Remembers that the purpose of common legislation on Member States' fiscal frameworks is to make sure Member States stay committed to the rules commonly agreed upon and not to specify the policy choices of a Member State;

35.

Calls on the Commission to come to the competent committees of Parliament to present the AGS in the beginning of November each year, starting 4—5 November 2013, so as to allow sufficient time for Parliament to present its views in subsequent European Semesters;

36.

Regrets that, in its ‘Annual Growth Survey 2013’ Communication (COM(2012)0750), the Commission did not properly address the role of the EU budget in the European Semester process; regrets, in particular, that the EC, while proposing key priorities, failed to provide factual and concrete data on how the EU budget can actually play a triggering, catalytic, synergetic and complementary role in relation to local, regional and national policies and investments launched to implement these priorities;

37.

Is convinced that funding at EU level can generate savings for all the Member States’ budgets and that this should be emphasised; considers that the EU budget has a vital role to play in stimulating growth, boosting job creation and successfully reducing macroeconomic imbalances throughout the Union, and basically also in reaching the ‘EU-2020 goals’; regrets once again that the Commission fails to address this issue in its Communication on the AGS;

38.

Acknowledges the Commission’s assessment that the levels of debt accumulated by public and private actors restrict the scope for new activities and investments in the Member States; calls, nevertheless, on the Member States neither to consider their national GNI contribution to the EU budget as an adjustment variable in their consolidation efforts, nor to seek to reduce artificially the volume of the EU budget’s growth enhancing expenditure, contrary to the political commitments they have made at the highest level; is, however, fully aware of the economic tension between the need to consolidate public finances in the short run and any potential increase for some Member States in their GNI-based contribution brought about by an increase in the level of payments in the EU budget; restates, therefore, its strong calls for reform of the financing arrangements for the EU budget — to be agreed in the framework of the 2014-2020 MFF negotiations — by reducing the share of Member States’ GNI-based contributions to the EU budget to 40 % by 2020, thereby contributing to their consolidation efforts (1);

39.

Recalls that the European budget is primarily an investment budget, with 94 % of its total being reinvested in the Member States;

40.

Requests the Commission to provide updated information on Member States’ current efforts to re-programme and accelerate the use of EU structural and cohesion funds in order to support growth and social cohesion, notably for SMEs, and to fight youth unemployment;

41.

Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.