"The eurozone needs more user-friendly rules to be more efficient," stressed S&D Euro MP Pervenche Berès, welcoming Jean-Claude Juncker's call for smarter co-operation and more trust between member states and the Commission.
Juncker's comments were made during a meeting between members of EU national parliaments and Euro MPs today in Brussels, chaired by the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz.
French socialist MEP Pervenche Berès set out the main recommendations of her report on the review of the economic governance, which will be discussed and voted in the European Parliament in the coming weeks.
Mrs Berès stressed:
"We are impressed by what has been achieved in recent years to help solve the eurozone crisis: the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), the banking union and most recently the €315billion investment plan from the Juncker Commission and the new flexible interpretation of the fiscal rules. These are the right steps to change the direction of Europe towards growth and job creation.
"But this is not enough. We need more user-friendly rules and more democracy in the economic governance of the eurozone."
In her report, she argues that:
"Most observers, but also the Commission, today recognise that economic governance has reached a point of complexity that is detrimental to democracy, transparency and ownership."
For the future and ahead of the report on the deepening of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) by the four presidents (the presidents of the European Commission, European Council, Eurogroup and European Central Bank), she proposes among other things: a taxation union; a social dimension to the EMU, including a minimum wage mechanism and a minimum unemployment benefit scheme; the inclusion of the ESM in the EU; and a fiscal capacity for the euro area.
"The EU and the euro area need it to make sure it will not be too little too late this time and that European people can get the best out of the euro," she concludes in her report.
