During the extraordinary plenary session of the European Parliament in Brussels, MEPs debate on the conclusions of the European Council (17 June 2010).

Brussels

VERHOFSTADT, Guy (Renew, BE)

ULVSKOG, Marita (S&D, SE)

debate

plenary session

FARAGE, Nigel (NI, UK)

HARMS, Rebecca (Greens/EFA, DE)

WORTMANN-KOOL, Corien (EPP, NL)

European Council meeting 17 June 2010 (T)

Conclusions of the European Council (17 June 2010): extracts from the debate

SOUNDBITE (Dutch), Corien WORTMANN-KOOL (EPP, NL), The crisis requires us finally to create a solid foundation for the continuity and existence of the EURO.The budget must be tackled to reinstall confidence in the financial markets and amongst our citizens. Parliament supports a strengthening of the preventive arm of the stability pact. We have to bring in penalties but everything would depend of how the task force puts theses things into practice. The intergovernmental method will not help us out of the crisis as far as we are concerned we need a community governance approach. No new institutions, rather a strong role for the commission.

SOUNDBITE (French), Marita ULVSKOG (S&amp;D, SE), We are putting recovery at risk because of the economic crisis. The crisis can become a deep rooted recession and that is something that member states run seeing a risk. So what we are seeing is a risk of damage of what we are being done, of what we are trying to salvage. I listened very closely to what Mr Van Rompuy said I think that what he said was very good but there is an awful lot of "architecture" and very little of "human being" inside here. So we are talking about fighting for the environment and fighting for our financial markets but here we also have to contend with massive employment rates and the ranks of the unemployed are continuing to swell.

SOUNDBITE (English), Guy VERHOFSTADT (ALDE, BE), It is evident that the member states of the union have to play an important role, a vital role I should say in the economic strategy of the union and of the euro zone in the next years. But the most important question is another: The most important question today is who will do the control and who shall do the sanctioning if some of the member states are not fulfilling the conditions. That is the key question. Will the control be in the hands of the member states themselves, of the council, and will the member states sanctioning themselves or will it be an independent institution, a communitarian institution of the European Union, that is the key question of today.utaways special plenary session.

SOUNDBITE (German), Rebecca HARMS (Greens/EFA, DE), But what have we got? We got basically nice sounding words as in the Lisbon Strategy. Sustainable development-you can say this as many times as you like you cant say it too many times it sounds good. And the Lisbon Strategy there are all sorts of instruments and money that should be made available but they are not. And for myself as a green politician I still feel there is no persuasive argument that we are looking at resource efficiency, energy efficiency, ambitious climate protection and that could be a motor for growth.

SOUNDBITE (English), Nigel FARAGE (EFDD, UK), But there is no plan B. There is no contingency plan to help countries like Greece and Spain and Portugal witch at some point will have to leave this currency there is no plan to help to refloat there own national currencies. Just how much to theses countries have to suffer in the pursuit of this EURO dream. Just how much unemployment does there have to be what level of civil disorder is expectable to hold together a currency that simply can not work and I wonder how much longer will the Germans go on paying the enormous bill.