During the plenary session of the European Parliament in Brussels, Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of the European Council, and José Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC, address the MEPs with the conclusions of the EU Council meeting of June 17th 2010.

Brussels

statement

plenary session

BARROSO, Jose Manuel (PT, EC President)

VAN ROMPUY, Herman (BE)

European Council meeting 17 June 2010 (T)

Conclusions of the European Council (17 June): extracts from the statements by the Council and the Commission

Arrival of Jerzy BUZEK, EP President with Jos&eacute; Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC in the Chamber (2 shots)

Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of the Council, taking his seat

Jerzy BUZEK, EP President with Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of the Council

SOUNDBITE (English), Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of European Council, I know that there are some in this Chamber and elsewhere who have expressed concerns about the method being used to implement the strategy (2020 strategy). Is it as some have claimed too much of an intergovernmental working method? I would simply point out that improving Europe's economic performance requires the use of a range of intruments , some of them of European competence and other are National competence.

SOUNDBITE (English), Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of European Council, At the European level we can and do adopt common legislation for our Common market and regulation on financial services on competition policy on trade on consumer protection and other matters, we can also make use of the EU budget in particular the structural funds anreserach programmes in all this the role of the Commissionis pivotal.

SOUNDBITE (English), Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of European Council, Key aspects of our economic performance remain essentially a National competence not least education.

SOUNDBITE (English), Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of European Council, The Eu COuncil also took a decisionwhich in my opinion is of equal importance of the Europe 2020 strategy, this was the decision to establish a score card and a system of surveillance to better assess competitiveness developments and imbalances so that we can detect unsustainable or dangerous trends at an earlier stage.

SOUNDBITE (English), Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of European Council, Regarding the financial sector our priority is to have a solid and healthy banking system ; we have called on the EP and ECOFIN council to rapidly a legislative proposal on financial supervision to ensure that the European Sytemic Risk Board and the supervisory authorities can be in working in the begining of next year.

SOUNDBITE (English), Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of European Council, The EU Council agreed that MS should intriduce a system of levies and taxes on financial institutions and we agreed to explore and develop with our G20 partners the possibility of introducing a global financial transaction tax.

SOUNDBITE (English), Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of European Council, We adopted a declaration on Iran which underline its deep concern about its nuclear programme and ask the Foregin affairs council to adopt a its next meeting measures to implement UN security Council sanctions and to accompany them with further measures.

SOUNDBITE (English), Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of European Council, I should emphisize that it was never suggested that finance ministers should have to submit their national budgets to the Commission for approval prior to the submitting it to their national parliaments, no one would endorse such an infrigement of Parliamentary competencies.

SOUNDBITE (English), Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of European Council, There seems to be an emerging consensus that we don not need to create new institutions for our economic governance but to make better use of those that we already have.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jose Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC, The most important conclusions of this European COuncil was of course Europe2020. This was now accepted by the EU Council as EU strategy for the long term in a sustainable and inclusive way we proposed just a few months ago and to which this house has given substantial input, I am reassuerd that it has been possible for this approach to be agreed so quickly and in parituclar that we have been able to agree the 5 headlines targerts including on education and fighting poverty...

SOUNDBITE (English), Jose Manuel BARROSO, President of the EC, European Parliament can count on the Commission to defend the Commuhicty method as being the best way to deliver the results our citizens expect to see ; I believe this EU COUncil was an important progress for our European project.