Statement by Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE) on the European Council meeting (17-18 March 2016) in Brussels.

Brussels

LAMBERTS, Philippe (Greens/EFA, BE)

meeting of the European Council

European Council meeting 17-18 March 2016 (T)

European Council meeting (17-18 March 2016): statement by Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE)

Exterior view of the European Counci venue, Brussels, Belgium (1 shot)

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, UK), Draghi is in a way right in saying we need a policy response from the politicians and not only from the ECB, the fact is that the kind of policy response that you expect from politicians are again more the same, but flexibility of the labour market actually increases the inequality, so this actually increasing the reaxtrability of employers to the detriments of workers. So it is more of the same, what I hope, what I&rsquo;m hoping for years now is, is that Europe would make the energy transition, it is creates strategic projects through a lot of money.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), (On the VAT action plan, where details still need to be communicated) The only hope I have through the Action plan is that it would drastically reduce the VAT fraud, there are still tens of billion being lost every year or the public treasuries in Europe, it is time that we go after that. I need to go through details to see how good that package will be and if that package will be addressing the fraud problem.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), The fact is that we are going to deport refugee and then let maximum 72.000 refugee in, so you know that is resettlement, when I look at the track record of resettlement in Europe so far they have done only a few thousand. So not only 72.000 is credible, but I would add on top of that 72.000 refugees, is 0.3 percent of the refugees that are in Turkey at the moment. 72.000 on a total of 2 Billion 500 thousands, that is ridiculous low.

SOUNDBITE (English), Philippe LAMBERTS (Greens/EFA, BE), There is a lot of desire of Heads of State and governments to have a date, preferable a date next Sunday to announce that they are starting, but if they are serious of making that legal that is individual treatment of demands it will take weeks if not months before you have this infrastructure in place to make the things properly.