Press Advisories

25. 3. 200912:43

Czech PM and European Council President presents summit results to EP

Mirek Topolánek appreciated the agreement reached by the Member States under the Czech Presidency at the spring EU summit.

The agreement has made it possible to adopt concrete financial stimuli in order to mitigate the impact of the financial and economic crisis. The European Council President repeatedly warned against adopting further “packages” and rejected the argument that the USA was considering new forms of direct support: “The position of the USA is different from that of the European Union since the EUR 400 billion contained in the European Economic Recovery Plan serves to multiply the automatic stabilisers which the US economy does not have”, stated Mirek Topolánek adding that it would be a mistake to adopt other financial stimuli before we can assess the efficiency of the measures already adopted. His arguments were endorsed by the Chairman of the European People’s Party – European Democrats Group, the strongest political group in the European Parliament: “We don’t need more socialist packages, but more jobs, and this has been confirmed by all the EU Member States”, said Joseph Daul. He added that the discontent expressed by representatives of the European Socialists doesn’t even reflect the approach of Member State left-wing governments. Chairman of the European Socialists Martin Schulz then called on the European Council and the Commission not to resign themselves to a reduced format of the upcoming “jobs summit”: An “open Troika” is not enough – a meeting of all the EU27 must be convened at the highest level”, he said. Mirek Topolánek, who has called the “job-summit” for May, then explained that the Troika format, as opposed to an informal summit of the governments of all 27 Member States, will make it possible for the June EU summit to adopt binding conclusions and to make a better assessment of the instruments that the Member States are using to maintain job opportunities. “The unemployment rate is rising and will continue to rise – this is my main worry”, said European Commission President José Manuel Barroso referring to the jobs summit. “I think that this should now be the preoccupation of all European leaders”, he added. Concluding his speech, Mirek Topolánek invited European Parliament President Hans-Gert Pöttering to take part in the EU-USA summit in Prague.