During the plenary session (14-17 June 2010) of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs question Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC, on the end of negotiations of the SWIFT agreement with the US and the EU economic governance.

Strasbourg

debate

plenary session

Institutions (T2)

WEBER, Manfred (EPP, DE)

economic governance (T)

SWIFT (T)

BARROSO, Jose Manuel (PT, EC President)

SCHULZ, Martin (S&D, DE)

HARMS, Rebecca (Greens/EFA, DE)

TZAVELA, Niki (EFD, EL)

SWIFT agreement and economic governance: extracts from the question hour with Jose Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC

SOUNDBITE (German), Manfred WEBER (EPP, DE), Lots of citizens are concerned about data and data protection&hellip; what checks and balances are in place in the new agreement?

SOUNDBITE (German), MArtin SCHULZ (S&amp;D, DE), (about the new SWIFT agreement): Did Ms Malmstr&ouml;m tell you that the text constituted a danger because of the likely option of Parliament taking it down?

SOUNDBITE (English), Jose Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC, Commissioner Malmstr&ouml;m cannot prejudge what could be the vote of the Parliament&hellip; Of course she hopes it will be in favour, if not she would not have completed the negotiations on behalf of the Commission.

SOUNDBITE (French), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), Do you agree with us that we need economic governance both in the euro-zone and the EU? And on this economic governance, who is to run it? Who is to guide it? We think it is the Commission, you can't have that done by a Council who meets 4 times a year with the problems we have at the moment!

SOUNDBITE (French), Jose Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC, The Commission is the economic government of Europe, that's the only treaty compatible reply possible&hellip; Applause

SOUNDBITE (French), Jose Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC, I would like to thank the 4 main political groups in this Parliament for the very clear position they adopted today at the press conference on the community method strategy in respect of the Lisbon Treaty.

SOUNDBITE (German), Rebecca HARMS (Greens/EFA, DE), I would like to know whether you really believe that the regulations we have in the EU for the transport of oil and gas will protect us from the disasters that we have seen in other parts of the world?

SOUNDBITE (English), Jose Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC, The Commission is following developments closely, Commissioner Oettinger had already convened in May a meeting with major oil companies active in new waters in order to get a precise picture of the situation in Europe and obtain insurances from the industry on the current levels of safety. The Commission works with Member states for ensure both prevention and an emergency response system in order to protect European citizens and environment.

SOUNDBITE (Greek), Niki TZAVELA (EFD, EL), Do you really think that we can tackle this recession by means of pan-European measures? by coordinated measures? by issuing euro-bonds?

SOUNDBITE (English), Jose Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC, Frankly speaking I don't believe there is now openness of our member states to consider euro-bonds for this kind of expenditure&hellip; We have recently adopted a very important ambitious programme in terms of facility for helping countries with problems of debt; it is in fact some kind of obligations in terms that the member states take to the financial markets, so I believe it would be extremely difficult to get now from the member states the agreement with the euro-bonds principle for this kind of projects.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jose Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC, We can make some proposals for the euro-area but always in the framework of the EU and not having the euro-area as something separate from the rest of the EU. I believe this is critically important for the success of a Union that is really based on the principle of solidarity.