By Today the European Parliament voted on the report by ALDE MEP Sylvie Goulard (Modem, France) on the "feasibility of the introduction of stability bonds" which responds to the Green Paper launched by the Commission in November 2011.
"To exit from the crisis, we need to help the Member States to implement the new rules strengthening the budgetary discipline and aiming at reducing the debt. A redemption fund and/or eurobills could accompany the efforts already made in reducing the costs of reimbursing the debt. The investors are also seeking for safe and liquid assets".
In this logic, continued the EP rapporteur: "A common issuance of bonds should not be excluded a priori on the grounds of moral hazard. It should be rather seen as one of the instruments that can contribute to the exit of the crisis - as it could be a strong signal to the financial markets and preserve the stability of the EMU -, and not least as a natural consequence of sharing a common currency".
While recalling that some type of bond issuances can be done faster and without having to change the Treaties, Mrs Goulard added: "We are not asking to issue Eurobonds today but to continue and to deepen our evaluation of this instrument. We certainly must look at all legal, economic, technical and political conditionality needed before moving forward".
In this sense, the report calls on the Commission to further clarify its proposal to make the common debt issuance conditional and to evaluate and come up with possible proposals on the instruments presented in the roadmap laid out in the report, e.g. a European Redemption fund, eurobills, Blue bonds, Eurobonds, and T-bonds.
"In the long term, we should aim at issuing common debt for a genuine EU or eurozone budget enabling the financing of EU investments. The interim report of the President of the European Council has also hinted in that direction focusing on a budget for the eurozone. This option which requires a Treaty change should not be disregarded because it is less intrusive and quite logical in the current integration process", she concluded.
|
distributed by
|
