Tsipras in PES: The 4 changes he proposes for the Stability Pact

Alexis Tsipras informed the European Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, during their meeting, that he would submit a proposal to the European Commission’s public debate platform on the future of European governance.

He analyzed and discussed with the European Commissioner for Economic Affairs, aspects of his proposal for the revision of the Stability Pact so that Europe does not return to the failed recipes of austerity.

In the same context, in his meeting with the leader of the Italian Democratic Party, Enrico Letta, they agreed to coordinate their actions for a progressive proposal for the revision of the Stability Pact.

In this context, the former Italian Prime Minister invited Alexis Tsipras to participate in an event – a conference on the future of Europe and the revision of the Stability Pact, which will be organized by the PD in Rome, in the first months of next year.

Earlier, Tsipras had contacts with the new German Chancellor, Olaf Solz, the Prime Minister of Portugal, Antonio Costa, and the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sanchez, during the inauguration of the Council of the Party of Eurosocial observer

Antonio Costa, during their meeting, invited Mr. Tsipras to visit his country and support his campaign in view of the upcoming January elections in Portugal.

Mr Tsipras’s speech to the PES Council is based on his morning statement that progressive values ​​are justified (“public health support is a matter of life and death”, “state financial support saves tens of thousands of jobs”, etc.), and that ” to change the rules to change our lives “and that in this context the Stability Pact must be revised in 4 axes:

1. Review debt and deficit criteria and include social criteria for unemployment, poverty, inequality

2. Exclude public investment contributing to productivity from deficit calculation

3. A mechanism that ensures the symmetry of the European economy, reducing surpluses to the north

4. Recovery and Resilience Fund to become a permanent financial tool for prevention and response to crises and challenges

The main points of Mr. Tsipras’ presence at the PES event are:
Costa’s invitation to Portugal to campaign in January
– Letta’s invitation to speak in Italy in March at a PD event for the future of European economic governance
– the announcement that it will submit a concrete proposal for a new Pact within the European Commission’s platform for the future of economic governance in the next 2 weeks

It is noted that approaching the PES event, Mr. Tsipras stressed in a statement to journalists:

“Europe is going through a multi-crisis. The health crisis, the climate crisis, the energy crisis. So we can not go on with yesterday’s prescriptions. The Stability Pact needs to be revised, because life itself has shown that they do not work. to join forces, especially the progressive forces, to unite our voices so as not to let the conservative forces take us back to yesterday’s recipes. It is enough today to talk about the debt and the deficit, which in relation to the percentage of 60% and 3% do not correspond to reality, but we must also talk about social criteria, inequalities, poverty, unemployment. exclude development investment from the deficit calculation. Create a balancing mechanism, because are what reflect the deficits of the South. So we can not only talk about reduced deficits in the South but also about low surpluses in the North. And finally, to make the European Governments Recovery and Resilience Fund a permanent tool. “These are initiatives that we must take, to join forces, so as not to return to the vicious circle of austerity, to the vicious circle of social disintegration that we have seen in previous years.”