Proposition 53K2189

Projet de loi portant assentiment à la Décision du Conseil européen du 25 mars 2011 modifiant l'article 136 du Traité sur le fonctionnement de l'Union européenne en ce qui concerne un mécanisme de stabilité pour les Etats membres dont la monnaie est l'euro.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

March 15, 2012

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

Economic and Monetary Union European Union euro area financial intervention revision of an agreement international agreement monetary policy monetary crisis short-term monetary support public debt stability programme regulation (EU)

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld N-VA MR

Voted to reject

LDD VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Zoé Genot (Ecolo) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

June 14, 2012 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, today the House is asked to approve two important bills that are closely linked. Technically, I should issue a separate report for both draft laws, but these matters are intertwined and one is the result of the other.

I have the honour to report to the Chamber on the amendment to Article 136 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which was approved in the Committee of 5 June 2012 with 14 votes in favour, 1 abstinence and 1 vote against.

Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, I have checked it and almost all regional assemblies have approved it. In the committee of the Flemish Parliament, the last in a row, this was approved on 12 June and it is scheduled for approval on 27 June.

It is an important article that is being modified because it allows to build a structure. We will say a few words about this later.

I repeat to the Room very briefly what it is about. “Member States whose currency is the euro may set up a stability mechanism that is activated if this is indispensable to ensure the stability of the euro area as a whole. The loan of financial support, if required under the mechanism, will be bound by strict conditions.”

This is an important matter. All committee members, with two exceptions for the political groups, supported this initiative, which had already been approved in the Senate.

Mr Coëme made a call based on the solidarity in that mechanism, and was assisted by Mr Luyckx who emphasized that his group supports this bill and that this will enable the amendment of the European Stability Mechanism.

I also, on behalf of my group, supported this initiative. I have emphasized that the “mutualization” of a number of debts is one of the only outlets that are open. Mr Waterschoot of CD&V also supported the initiative as well as Mr Dallemagne. Mrs. Colen took her familiar, very tight attitude. He opposed the initiative in principle. Mr Van der Maelen rightly asked the question of what we would be if the euro had not existed.

and M. Gilkinet, with many developments, made known the position of his group, a position that we obviously respect.

Mr. Speaker, the conclusion is that Belgium participates in the capital of EUR 80 billion for 3.44 %.

I use your indulgence to also report on the second bill. The print sample of this report you will all find back at your banks. This second bill is a capital proposal. As the Minister himself said, it is essential to complete the artificially created European Financial Stability Facility with a permanent financing mechanism.

These are funds that are not covered by EU funds. They are important. It is about a social capital of 700 billion euros, with a cash income of 80 billion euros. Belgium will be responsible for a contribution of EUR 2.8 billion.

The Deputy Prime Minister has made it clear that the burden on our budget is relatively modest when you look at the five-year period. At an interest rate of approximately 3 % it amounts to an amount of 84 million euros per year in so far as there is a share included this year.

All groups, with a few exceptions, have agreed to this. The Ecolo-Green Group had a lot of questions about what is going on. Mr. Gilkinet was on the same line as in the discussion of the previous draft. Mr. Luykx had a different attitude, which I understand by the way. He wondered whether this is a shared responsibility between the state parliaments and the federal parliament.

To this, the government answered, at the request of the Deputy Prime Minister, clearly no; as in all other federal states, this only binds the federal level. The Deputy Prime Minister also explained, with a number of statements, the comments of the State Council on the subject. The government also promised all transparency, both in the budget documents and in additional explanations.

Because of all the other groups, including those of the reporter, we received the same consent.

There was again the principled observation of Ms. Colen on behalf of her group. She clearly explained that this change of the treaty and the creation of this new fund could not encourage her group.

Mr. Speaker, finally, both in the words of Mr. Deseyn and in the words of Mr. de Donnea, I can say that the other members of the committee with great unanimity wished to approve this. The result was that the draft was approved with 10 votes for, 1 vote against and 5 abstentions.

I would like to ask the House to approve these two drafts.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, colleagues, the draft law presented here for approval is indeed aimed at the approval of the Treaty establishing the ESM or the European Stability Mechanism. In the future, the ESM will also take over the functions of the current EFSF and the EFS or European Financial Stability Mechanism. This treaty sets out a set of measures to overcome the current financial crisis. The aim of this treaty is to ⁇ a sustainable, stable economy that will provide rest for all Europeans in the long run.

Our party, the N-VA, is pro Europe. For our party, there are only two political levels left: Flanders and Europe. Our party is neither eurosceptic nor europhobic, nor is it eurosceptic, but Eurocritical. The impact and scope of this treaty requires that we continue to follow it with the necessary vigilance and critical view. Therefore, we have already discussed in detail in the committee the guarantee relationships and the scenarios in which the fund would be inadequate. The Minister has also responded to this.

This treaty is substantial. Our country undertakes commitments and commitments through the ESM, as well as through bilateral loans and through interventions in the financial sector. We believe that the establishment of the ESM can be defended, as this support is only granted under strict conditions. In order to get out of the crisis, the new European measures, including the six-pack with sanctions mechanism, must also be effectively applied. The countries that rely on this fund must demonstrate the necessary budgetary discipline to correct their budgetary situation.

The ESM has no blanco cheques. It imposes strict conditions on the granting of financial assistance and is therefore a means of recovery.

It is also a means of giving a future perspective to countries in need. They will then have to implement those reforms and can become competitive again in the long run.

For a number of countries that have been shut down from the financial markets, it cannot be other than that this fund takes over the financing. The ESM Treaty is therefore useful.

Today we do not believe in a scenario where Europe is overboard and one chooses the unknown. The establishment of the ESM is a postponement, but a postponement that also gives the countries in the periphery a chance to recover.

Colleagues, both in the bill itself and in the responses of the Minister in the committee, also in the Senate, it is indicated that the present behavior is not mixed. However, the Minister does not base his view on an opinion of the Working Group on Mixed Contracts, which is competent to determine whether a treaty is mixed or not.

The State Council has very clear doubts about this character. He expressed this in his opinion on the draft law. In fact, the Council of State has explicitly requested the Working Group on Mixed Conventions to seek an opinion.

I quote from the opinion: “Given the doubts thus expressed, the explanatory memo should at least be supplemented in such a way as to clearly demonstrate whether or not the ESM Treaty submitted for approval is of a mixed nature. In any case, the Division Legislation considers that legal certainty would be better guaranteed if the Working Group on Mixed Contracts had been consulted.”

Mr. Minister, it is not up to you and not to us to play the arbitrator in these matters, but to the Working Group Mixed Contracts that was established for this purpose.

We consider this a very important point.

Your party is also part of the Flemish government and sits in the Flemish Parliament, Mr. Minister. However, we cannot categorize that level as second-class or pretend to be subordinate to the federal level. The Flammers are also guarantors of this treaty.

We therefore agree with the State Council’s opinion on this draft law, which states that legal certainty would be better guaranteed if the Working Group on Mixed Contracts was requested for advice.

When voting on a treaty such as the ESM, the rules must be properly observed. It is an important treaty. We should not be asked to put those rules aside or to act in a hurry. For these reasons, we will abstain from voting.

Beyond numbers, complex mechanisms and European treaties, we are speaking here of a European reality that must impose on us, solidarity.

Some wanted to polemize in a committee on the mixed or non-mixed character of this treaty, changing their vote according to their desires.

However, my dear colleagues, this European solidarity finally materialized by this permanent mechanism is much better than hiding behind dark procedural arguments that, in addition, were very justly dismantled yesterday in a commission by the Minister of Finance.

Indeed, the MES constitutes a strong symbol, long awaited and too long absent from the construction of the Eurozone. This stability mechanism is intended only to support countries in difficulty. I hope that in the future it will not be used often.

Nevertheless, the news shows that this is not the case, since it is now the turn of Spain to be hit with a full blow and to appeal to the help of the FESF, the future MES subject to our vote.

Let us recall that states have been put in severe difficulty not by a social state spending excessively but by dysfunctions of some financial institutions that believed in the casino. Behind these Member States are – and some seem to forget it – citizens who deserve more than blind austerity plans.

It is true that in order to ensure the stability of our Economic and Monetary Union, it has been essential to strengthen the mechanisms of economic governance in compliance with the European Treaties and the Maastricht criteria. These rapid and unprecedented developments have been implemented in the face of one of the biggest economic and financial crises in our history. Member States and their citizens then had to ensure the maintenance of our socio-economic system and to undertake structural reforms as in our country.

But for my group, this European solidarity must also be accompanied by equality. Thus, we have long advocated for these European aid mechanisms to be accompanied by conditionalities in terms of combating fiscal and social dumping within the Union, in particular in the case of Ireland. Such conditionalities will have to be a reality for both small and large Member States, as well as ⁇ ining their socio-economic balance.

The implementation of the MES is therefore essential. For if these Community and integrated mechanisms must enable, in the future, to respond more effectively to a crisis at the level of the euro area, it is, for my group, to go beyond a mere economic union that responds subsequently to crises. To do this, Europe needs to do more than the MES. This is what our Prime Minister is calling for in the European forums. My group has also submitted a resolution on this subject.

Beyond this permanent mechanism, Europe must, from now on, implement a balanced and rigorous solution, future-proof and, above all, that will inject oxygen for the real economy. We look forward to the upcoming European summits.

This message seems to have finally been heard by our various partners who have realized that the path to rigour also requires a job and growth pact in addition to the budget pact. We are now waiting for the realization of such a pact that we were, at the time, alone to ask for.

Europe must be the carrier of positive changes for our citizens, preserving our social model but also our prosperity, which involves new mechanisms of which the MES is a full component.

These are the reasons why I am delighted that, despite some attempts to slow the accession to this European solidarity, we can, from today, ratify this text. In fact, my group is indeed pro-European in facts and in acts.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, we are taking a major decision, the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), following the amendment of Article 136 of the Treaty on European Union. Based on an appropriate legal basis, this mechanism will succeed, on July 1st, the European Financial Stability Fund to help the Member States most hardly affected by the crisis. The Reformation Movement strongly supports these two provisions.

The ESM is expected to replace the two assistance instruments introduced in spring 2010, namely the European Financial Stability Fund and the Community Financial Stability Mechanism. Through this, it is a question of institutionalizing the principle of solidarity at the heart of the European construction but also of introducing rules of fiscal orthodoxy from which some States, despite the Maastricht criteria, have more than freely freed themselves, with the consequences we observe today. Therefore, we are moving towards increasingly strong fiscal solidarity and strengthened supervisory rules. That is why a link is established between this European Solidarity Mechanism and the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance, which we will also ratify in the coming weeks.

I think it is essential that solidarity is not like a white check. Mr. Minister, as you correctly pointed out in the committee, the aid provided will be conditioned by the adoption of an adjustment plan on a proposal from the Commission in connection with the European Central Bank. In addition, from 1 March 2013, financial assistance from the ESM will be de facto more open to those who have ratified the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance.

Solidarity must enable States to sustainably regain their economic and financial autonomy, which requires firm commitments in order to regain budgetary balance. I believe that all the theories that some advocate, aimed at relieving this effort, ultimately advocate inflation and therefore the destruction of the euro, the destruction of our social model and the destruction of our purchasing power. I was surprised to hear the Vlaams Belang advocate this thesis because usually, although I do not always agree with him, economically, it is still more reasonable than what I heard the other day.

Belgium must therefore continue its fiscal consolidation efforts and continue, year after year, to reduce its debt and thus its interest burden.

The European Stability Mechanism provides many additional guarantees compared to the European Financial Stability Fund. It will be a permanent structure. It is an international financial organization and has a maximum capacity of almost 500 billion.

The intervention instruments of the European Stability Mechanism will be powerful and diverse: direct loans, credit lines as a precautionary measure, recapitalization of financial institutions through loans to states, including those not covered by a assistance program.

The future mechanism has the possibility of intervening in primary market loans, but also in preventive credit lines, in loans to finance the recapitalization of banks and in repayments on the secondary market. Furthermore, states agreed to lower loan rates to ease the debt burden of aided states.

Mr. Minister, in order for the euro area to get out of the turbulence it has been experiencing since the beginning of 2010, the creation of a European Stability Mechanism to stabilize the markets, and a budgetary pact allowing the European economies to converge towards financial stability and regain their competitiveness, are linked.

If these conditions are not sufficient, they are necessary. In addition, it is important to have a growth pact, to improve the regulation of banks and, ⁇ , also of financial markets. But it must also be acknowledged that the latter are an extremely useful alarm bell despite their imperfections to be corrected.

Belgium, the founding member of the European Union, should not suffer from these developments. In the face of the sovereign debt crisis in the euro area, Member States must make decisions that go towards greater integration, and the renewal of the debate on a political Europe is not alien to it. Belgium must make its voice heard in this debate and formulate proposals to progress at least towards a more integrated political and economic system at the level of the euro area and not less integrated as some wish.

In conclusion, the current crisis highlights the unfinished state of European construction. It is necessary to define the outlines of an economic governance of the euro area linking effort, solidarity and growth. The structuring of the euro area will allow the European Union to take a major step towards more integration, but on the model of concentric circles.

Indeed, the eurozone crisis has at least had the virtue of driving our partners to accept the idea that Europe can progress in a differentiated way. I welcome that the Monetary Union thus becomes the foundation of this new institutional construction.

Mr. Speaker, it is of course that our group joins the majority to approve this bill. The importance of the euro for people’s welfare is still underestimated today. This European Stability Mechanism Treaty is a sign of solidarity that we can only welcome.

A European economic governance is also being initiated. At the time of the creation of the Eurozone, the system was not perfect. Meanwhile, it turned out to contain errors, which had to be corrected over the years. This is happening now. This is one of the measures needed to strengthen the euro. It is essential that the euro area has a permanent mechanism to strengthen financial support to euro countries in difficulty. The ESM is an important part of the package of measures that Europe is taking to address the euro crisis.

It is good that there is a permanent fund with extensive powers. It should be noted that the creation of the eurozone failed to resolve a number of fundamental issues. A certain “Europeanization” of powers may derive from this.

I think that all these elements are much more important than a discussion about this with a populist party in this Half-Round. It is more important to defend the values of the euro. Our group will therefore with particular conviction support this draft.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, I will be clear from the beginning: it is out of question for European federalists convinced that we are to see that other EU member countries are in trouble, such as Greece and Spain today, without helping them. This is the purpose of this European Stability Mechanism, the principle of which we support.

Similarly, if one is very optimistic, one can hope that this additional step towards more fiscal solidarity can be the embryo of a more successful federalism of socio-economic convergences, essential for saving the European project.

But, although I am very eager to be optimistic, I must note with you, I hope, that since the beginning of the euro crisis, it has not been the path of paradigm change that has been chosen, but rather the use of sparadraps and aspirin.

Is Greece in budgetary difficulty? Let us lend her a sparadrap which she will pay very expensive and which will be conditioned to very heavy, even counterproductive reforms. A new budget problem? We start again: the sparadrap is just a little bigger and the conditions even more unstable. Is this the turn of the Spanish banks, all recently, to be victims of the real estate bubble? Let’s give them a blow of oxygen and give them some aspirin. We will see the following. In the next crisis, we will probably increase the envelope.

We find, Mr. Minister, that Europe – the Council of European Ministers and the European Commission, at least, with some hope at the level of the Parliament – is totally and fundamentally unable to make the correct diagnosis of this bond crisis, that it prefers to close its eyes on the problems rather than apply real answers. It is always too late and too little.

When will we find real solutions?

I am joining Mr. From Donnea to ask me whether Belgium, the founding country of Europe, will remain on the balcony, will be the notary of disagreements, blockages or other, or if it will play an active role for a real outcome from the crisis. It seems to me, however, that the answers are at hand, beyond this European Stability Mechanism.

First and foremost, there is the role of the European Central Bank as the ultimate lender for states. Those who survive the crisis are states whose central banks can play an active role by allowing them to repay their debts at a reasonable price. This is the case of the United Kingdom. In Europe, the European Central Bank can lend to banks – which it does generously, at a rate of 1% – which can lend to states at very variable rates: almost zero for Germany, beyond 5 or 6% for countries in difficulty, this is the case of Greece and Spain. This aggravates the problems of the States concerned and the profits of the banks at the same time.

If these countries could benefit from financing at 1% or, in any case, at a moderate rate – this also applies to Belgium – from the European Central Bank, the burden of their debts would decrease so much, and they could recover funds for a genuine reorientation of their economies and for the maintenance or development of social policies that perform a function of economic regulator and barrier against poverty. And it is possible! We are often answered that this is not permitted by the treaties, which, on the other hand, allow us to lend to banks. You see the paradox. But this problem can be avoided, for example by working through the European Investment Bank. A little imagination and creativity for the rescue of the European project! It will have to be done, and the sooner it will be better.

I come to the second element of answer, after the more active role of the European Central Bank, which we call for. We need more and better Europe. Some of the states that are hesitant about this more active role of the ECB could be convinced by a greater European integration – and upwards, of course – in social and fiscal terms. Today, in the absence of a sufficiently successful European project, there is an intra-European competition on the social and fiscal level which results in the exploitation of several workers within the Union itself or in the granting of tax gifts to certain companies which have only the effect of destroying and threatening our socio-economic model. This social and fiscal dumping should be stopped.

President, André Flahaut, President

President, André Flahaut, President

We need to put an end to this and reboot Europe towards a true model of sustainable development and not towards the same thing, towards a society that is more energy-efficient, less polluting, that puts on SMEs, on exchanges of proximity, that invests in research and development, in renewable energies. This is the Green Deal that we dream of and promote at European level.

This project of reorientation of our economy must be accompanied by the establishment of social and environmental rights in such a way as to balance the exchanges between, on the one hand, countries like ours, which obviously respect the conventions of the International Labour Organization, not sufficiently but better than others international agreements in climate and environmental matters, and, on the other hand, those who build their economic development at the expense of workers or our planet.

The aim is obviously, first of all, to push all countries to increase the quality of their economic interventions and that of respect for their social and environmental rights; then, to generate new resources that could support the development of the least developed countries; and finally, to combat this form of competition that is, at various titles, unfair and thus safeguard a European social and economic model.

The third response element, after the more active role of the ECB and a qualitative leap in the European project, is a real regulation and a fundamental reform of the banking and financial sector. The latter and latter of the 1980s, the madness of the greatness of the banking and financial sector, the development of increasingly elaborate mechanisms of tax evasion and tax fraud have led to a huge destruction of values – this is where the destruction of values, Mr. de Donnea – for our States and for our fellow citizens.

The states must and still must intervene, directly or indirectly, to save the banks and I must not speak to you here about Fortis, Dexia or the Spanish banks. I am confused and angry when I see, on the one hand, the hardness of the reforms imposed on the aided states and, on the other hand, the clemency and patience towards the banking and financial sector, its executives and its shareholders!

Reforms are too slow and too timid. Banking operations should be separated. Investments, in particular from pension funds, must be oriented towards the real economy and employment. We need to raise the level of equity of banks, compel them to support the real economy, SMEs. We must legally prosecute those responsible for financial crashes and make them contribute to the recovery of our economy. They pass through drops too easily.

If we give the European Central Bank a more active role, if we reach a more sustainable European project and a qualitative leap, if we reform the financial sector in depth, the day will come when we will no longer need the European Stability Mechanism or other mechanisms of the same type.

Beyond these alternatives we advocate – one can criticize a project, but it is important to propose alternatives – I would like to return to the content of this treaty and, in particular, to the principle of conditionality.

Obviously, no one, including us, imagines an aid to states or companies – in this case, states – unconditionally.

Different questions arise. The first is to know who defines these conditions, in what democratic framework. The treaty explicitly specifies that it will be a strict conditionality (this is stressed three times) and that it is governors and finance ministers who can impose these conditions with a strong impact – as is seen in Greece – on the aided countries and their population. What is the democratic control over these decisions that ultimately escape the choice by the peoples of their leaders and mandators?

This leads me to ask myself a second series of questions. What types of conditionality are considered? Will the social clauses of the European Treaties be respected? Will the rate of repayment be sustainable for the aided countries or, on the contrary, will it contribute to aggravating their difficulties? How will the concerned populations be associated to avoid a democratic departure?

In this regard, the example of Greece is illuminating. It was imposed unthinkable, drastic conditions, without addressing the real problems: widespread tax fraud, hypertrophic military spending, excessive privileges of the Orthodox Church, competition from non-European neighboring countries. Under these conditions, the Commission and the Council have only managed to create despair among the Greek people and to promote the emergence – this is the democratic result of the recent elections – of neo-Nazi or extreme left parties that are openly anti-European.

What will be the outcome of Sunday’s elections in Greece? Will it allow for the formation of a government with which the discussion will be possible? Will it allow for a real governance, a real way out of crisis? With you, I can only hope. But I ask you to take lessons from what happened with Greece.

Regarding this European Stability Mechanism, our group already in March submitted a resolution that we hope, Mr. Speaker of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, will also be included on the agenda. It provides that the Minister of Finance, who represents us at the level of Ecofin and bodies capable of determining the conditions laid down to the aided States, enjoys a prior mandate, undertakes to respect the pace and capacity of repayment of the aided countries and to preserve, under the imposed conditions, the social and relief policies of these States. All this to prevent that aid, in the end, given the conditions under which it is granted, does not reinforce the problems, does not amplify them; all this to avoid a democratic implosion of the European zone and a double punishment to countries in difficulty.

Europe is at a turning point. Often, major crises lead to major reforms. This is where we want to express our hope. Each summit is a historic meeting that leads to inadequate decisions at this stage, but the next summits at the end of this month must allow for major reforms.

We are clearly in favor of solidarity with countries in difficulty. We hope that it will be the embryo of a more successful federalism, which is why, despite the critical exposition I have been able to make in the committee and at this tribune, we will support the ratification of this treaty.

However, we call for deeper and more successful reforms. We fear that the elements of the response are at the base of future problems and even more serious in the picture of what is happening in Greece, which is why, despite the overall positive vote of our group, two members of the Ecolo-Groen group will abstain to indicate our urgent demand for systemic reform for Europe rather than just sparadrap and aspirin in ever-increasing quantities.

I assume that the reporter did not mean it wrong. Mr. De Croo said that the Flemish Interest had spoken to Mrs. Alexandra Colen, who is known for her tight attitude, but who nevertheless spoke on behalf of the Flemish Interest Group.

In order to remove all ambiguity, I come forward as the Chairman of the Flemish Interest Group, not only to confirm that Ms. Colen spoke on behalf of our group, but to give you an extra insight that for the Flemish Interest this matter is of crucial importance.

Today a permanent emergency fund is approved here, robotized, automated. A permanent emergency fund is for me a contradictio in terminis. Either it is an emergency fund and then it is not permanent, or it is a permanent cash shift as it is now installed in Europe, but then it should no longer be called an emergency fund.

The way we discuss that fund here in Parliament today and vote on it is not so obvious. We have constructively ensured that two drafts of bills could be discussed today, so that you can then all run with them to the Belgian Staatsblad, to ensure that those 700 billion euros – which is approximately the current size of the fund – can be available to your dreams and your political vision. That should not hide that all this must be on a draft through the Chamber. We have already seen it hole through the Senate and now it is happening in the Chamber. We want to express our protest against it as clearly as possible.

I will not interfere in the historical disputes about what Luther would have done. If you don’t mind, I’ll go back in time, as a European. My speech today is full of love for Europe. Because of that love, I am here.

Members of CD&V who know the history of the Catholic Church may know better. At one point, Luther said that it had been enough with the customs trade around the debris. According to the legend, he went with 49 demands to the church of Wittenberg, where he nailed those 49 demands on the door.

There were 96 requests.

In fact, there were 96. In matters of faith, of course, I must emphasize the authority of Herman De Croo.

It is not because I sat with the Jesuits that I forgot my past.

I checked it in the meantime. There were 95 positions. The statement about Herman De Croo was not at the time.

He went to the castle church of Wittenberg and nailed them, according to the legend, at the church gate. According to some historians, he sent those 95 requests to his clerical superiors.

With that attitude I stand here today. Things are serious. The customs officers take possession of the European dream that has been destroyed. Decadence is total. What you are doing now with the emergency fund and the further stretching of the euro is abandoned by God, Mr. Minister.

The Flemish Importance stands alone. This is strongly emphasized by the reporter. We were even abandoned by N-VA. We are here only because we cannot do otherwise.

The [...]

We are both alone, colleague Jean-Marie Dedecker. I greet you. Welcome to the Kingdom of the Lord.

I am not talking more about faith. In any case, things are too serious. Luther said, “I stand here. I cannot do otherwise. I have to.”

You ask me to swear that out on behalf of all those beautiful principles named by socialists and liberals, on behalf of all those political principles of prosperity, solidarity and well-being. These are all big words, but it’s all about money. It is about a coin. A currency is a serious matter. They should not be politized. Mr Tuybens spoke about the values of the euro. The euro is a currency that has no values. There are no things like solidarity or anything to defend with a currency. A coin is a greenhouse that must be knocked. A currency must not become as the euro has now become a transfer union, in the analogy of the Belgian State, which permanently leaves the producers of prosperity for the benefit of those who do not guarantee that prosperity and are placed at the box office to serve them. That parallel between Belgium and that Europe is a parallel for which we celebrate thanks.

We understand that Belgium must approve this quickly because the prestige of Belgium is bound to the prestige of Herman Van Rompuy. Herman Van Rompuy is said to have promised in the cenacles of the European Union that he would make sure that his member state, from which he was delegated as prime minister to become the highest of the highest on the European level,... Did I hear that from you?

No, you dreamed of that.

I dreamed of it. Van Rompuy is therefore not interested in what Belgium is doing with it. I believe you. I am willing to believe you.

I’ve only heard that you’ve made quite a tough ticking, not only against Mrs. Colen, but even against our colleague of N-VA, Peter Luyckx, who would have joined it. He did that half and a half by abstaining from the first and voting for the second. It was not really clear how it ended with N-VA in this case.

By the way, N-VA, nationalist party, I sincerely hope that you reflect on all this European madness and that one day you will come to the conclusion that you should not leave the Flemish Interest alone in its decision. We are for Europe, but against the euro and against the European Union. Those institutions, which are collapsing in some way, must collapse because that would be a good thing.

I will briefly take Johan Van Overtveldt for the footlight. He gave today a list of reasons why the cost of the euro is becoming unbearable. He listed seven points. I overwhelm them for a moment. We all know them, but I’ll overcome the list.

First, Spain has been reduced to a junk. You thought last week that they only need 40 billion euros, but that we will give them 100 billion euros. Then everything would definitely be fine and the financial markets would be squeezed immediately. We are a week later and you know this has proved futile.

Second, the Greek elections will, of course, result in a Grexit, the exit of Greece from the European Union. The only question remaining is whether Germany will leave the euro or the Greeks will be removed. I think it will be the second. This will take a maximum of several weeks. Let’s assume that the Greek elections will result in the Greeks being put out of the euro.

Third, Portugal and Ireland want to renegotiate their aid. From there came the good news. They have been hanging on the fopspeen for a year and a half. In continuing to feed others, like Spain, you have always said that it went well in Portugal and Ireland. Now they say that if it can for Spain, it can also for us.

Fourth, the Italian sanitation train is still. Monti is stuck in the mud of his own political system, a system in which he governs on behalf of no voter. He is appointed as Herman Van Rompuy is appointed in Europe, namely, on behalf of the friends. Of course, the politicians who sit in parliament are slowly starting to think of the 2013 elections and so that Monti gets nothing done, no longer on behalf of the trade union, no longer against the trade union, no longer for the trade union. Monti is driving.

Fifth, the ECB cannot calm the markets. I will not extend to the ECB. Draghi no longer knows which wood to make arrows. Should he intervene? Should he not intervene? If he intervenes, he destroys the interest rates. If he does not want to destroy interest rates, he destroys inflation levels. The ECB is a chicken without a head. That is your ECB, not my ECB, your ECB.

Germany is becoming increasingly isolated. It is an open door entering. The German situation is what it is. Opposition to all that the Bundesbank is doing right now is growing everywhere, across Europe, both from the European Central Bank and from other member states. Europe is politically and monetarily isolated. This, of course, will not last long, because Germany has given its credit card to all other Member States and they all go with that credit card to the night bars, Belgium slightly less than Greece. Anyway, they all go to a night bar or cafe, at least something where Germany’s credit card is used. This is not a natural, not economically responsible situation. And that will escalate further.

Seventh, let’s not forget that the cost of long interest rates will escalate. That is obvious. In particular, the stability of the insurance companies and our pension funds is greatly affected, in the negative sense.

Eighth, the public debt is domesticated, according to Van Overtveldt. The banks all, after they have started to supply themselves with the ECB, massively buy the debt securities of the various governments. This is a vicious circle that must be broken.

This is what the Flemish Importance wants to say here today. Stop with it!

We cannot in any way pretend that the economic reality can be put aside if the political dreams only work. Political dreams are obvious. Over time, they went hand in hand. It is a sort of out-of-hand perversity associated with the dreams of Monard and consorts, the founders of the European Union. One would establish an economic union and step by step move towards a political union. Now, however, it has slowly turned to the opposite. Now that the story about the euro is no longer economically correct, it turns around. With doing so because of the political dreams, which Tuybens calls the values of the euro, solidarity, prosperity, goodwill, even peace. When Van Rompuy was still prime minister, he even associated peace with it. Now they are politizing the economic reality and turning things around.

Because of the political dreams and political stubbornness, one will advocate euro bonds at the Verhofstadt if necessary to ensure that the party can continue. Which party ? It is no longer about the economic feast, because it is seen that it is no longer economically responsible. It is the political feast, the political dream of European unification. It must become a state, an ESSR as it were. Thank you for this, our European dream has not been created for that. Our European dream was to bring together the European culture and the European solidarity of peoples, who are independent, but not that national state, that fake Belgian national state, which is artificial and, as far as Belgium is concerned, turns away from the folk reality and, as far as Europe and the euro is concerned, from the economic and financial reality, which is hard. So it is a perversion of all values, the reversal. In the long run, we get things like the emergency fund, which has long been used as an emergency fund, which is now made permanent, which – I repeat – is a contradictio in terminis.

Despite all the reasons I have mentioned here – I have cited Van Overtveldt – one goes on. You see that reality and yet you continue. That’s stubbornness, as I’ve seen from here before on my bench only companies by Guy Verhofstadt. He could also show that, not really colleague De Croo, that stubbornness with which he ran against a concrete wall. We are now doing this collectively.

I offer you all that, but we should not participate and do not participate, even if we are, like Luther, all alone. We continue to say what needs to be said. In 2009 we calculated as Vlaams Belang who contributes the highest net contribution to the functioning of the European Union. Belgium is officially in the sixth place but if you separate Flanders from it, then Flanders is far ahead of the Netherlands. That is the reality. Therefore, one must explain to those Flemish voters why they do this, why this should happen. One must explain to him why we continue this, despite Mrs. Lagarde’s warning – she is no longer French, she is now also under pressure from the Americans – that the European Union itself, not only the euro but the European Union itself, can or will undermine this.

You will ask me what my alternative is, because this is what is being discussed today. I do not have to offer an alternative, because the Flemish Belang has not created the mess. We were once again docked into our archives and a collaborator posted a document there entitled “Europe yes, Maastricht no”. That document bears the date of 10 July 1992 and the introduction was by Karel Dillen, our party chairman at the time.

We have been in the Chamber for 15 years, at every passage of the various parts of the euro, saying that this should be stopped, because it was madness and because we would break our neck with it. No one listened. We don’t mind that, just as Luther did not mind that he was not forgiven for his 95 demands. My colleagues Colen, Goyvaerts and Pas will subsequently go into more technical depth on the case. The Flemish Interest will be politically intertwined for all this trouble.

We move the matter to the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court will be able to review a number of constitutional articles on the basis of the fact that we here transfer powers that the Constitution reserves to Chamber Members of the Kingdom of Belgium. Not only do we write out a blank check, but we also discharge our own powers in favour of an institution that we cannot vote for or against, but which will have the ability to issue our money, while the Chamber will no longer be able to fully exercise its own tax authority, because it is automatically decided elsewhere where our money goes.

That concept, in which you are now entering and which is more than a step too far, cannot count on our support. We will fight that – as Leterme said it again – throughout Flanders, from the Constitutional Court to De Panne and far behind Maaseik. Because it is madness. You do what you should not do. You must not do that.

We can only warn those who say that they are Eurocritical on behalf of the Flamingos, but that present text will nevertheless approve here. N-VA, think about this! Let us put you under pressure. Leave all that euro madness and make sure that eurocritical means resisting the madness of the euro and the madness of the European Union.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, this proposal for approval of the Treaty has already been long debated in the Senate. I will not repeat here the arguments that have already been discussed by my group in the Senate. My speech will be brief.

For more than three years, Europe has been running a speed race to save its currency, its jobs, its model and its socio-economic prosperity against market attacks, against speculation, against poor governance, against the irresponsibility also that constituted deficits and abyssal sovereign debt.

The two treaties that we must adopt today, after the Senate, are the first indispensable steps, indispensable but, in the end, quite late and insufficient to try to restore trust. We can see this with the Spanish case and today’s news, with ten-year rates the worst recorded, are not good.

Our group will therefore adopt these two treaties and hopes that this European Stability Mechanism will come into force as soon as possible, if possible next July 1st, in order to help countries in difficulty and allow them to borrow at decent rates, so as not to plunge them into an unsustainable fiscal spiral.

But, once again, this indispensable firewall risks to be quickly devoured by the fire and urgently, as other colleagues have said, more solidarity, more Europe, more ambition for this formidable project that is the European Union.

The populist and extremist rise in Greece, whether left-wing or purely neo-Nazi, is the symptom of a flight forward of a wounded people, humiliated by the incuriousness of its irresponsible leaders but also sometimes by European inflexibility and, singularly, in some occasions, German.

Let us beware, Mr. Vice Prime Minister, of the disarray of the peoples of Europe, of the disarray in particular of the youth faced massively with unemployment and poverty! Let us have answers at the height of these issues! We need urgently, beyond budgetary discipline, a true humanist Europe, a European solidarity that goes, of course, through rigour but also through an ambitious plan for the revival of our economy and through an acceleration of fiscal, banking and economic integration, with the mutual debt and the issuance of euro bonds at the key.

Germany, through a formidable turn in history, can now play a primary role in saving European prosperity and the political union of our states. But in reality, neither Germany nor the other countries of the European Union have any other choice but to build, finally, that integrated economic union that we call our wishes. The alternative would simply be the collapse of our currency, our prosperity and our political union. It would, of course, be a catastrophe for Europe, which we have wanted for so many years, for so many decades, and for the world. The next European summit on 28 and 29 June will be crucial for this purpose. Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, I imagine that Belgium will do so to safeguard and propose an ambitious, strong, solidary, brief integrative project, all the opposite of what the Vlaams Belang has just advocated.

Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen, I will keep my speech very brief. It is merely a complement to the excellent discourse of colleague Gilkinet, who addressed the issue in a comprehensive but nuanced way. Nuance is absolutely necessary.

As my colleague just said, our group will approve the EMS Treaty because it provides the resources to protect EU countries from the attacks of speculators. We hope that this will provide social relief to heavily affected countries such as Greece and Portugal. Solidarity is needed within the European Union, and more specifically the eurozone.

However, the question arises what the price of this solidarity will be for the countries that will resort to the ESM system. In fact, the condition for granting ESM support is compliance with the golden rule of budgetary balance. And we have questions about that. Many economists say that it is not wise to impose a too heavy austerity regime in periods of low economic conditions. We consider it wiser to provide Member States with a certain range of manoeuvre to make temporary forward-looking investments, even if they can lead to a temporary budget deficit. This could give them the opportunity to pursue adapted social and economic policies and environmental policies. Sustainable development, the development of a green economy, is in part a response to the crisis we face today. This requires budgetary manoeuvrability.

It is ⁇ not our intention to challenge the need for sound and efficient management of public finances, but we must not deny the EU countries the possibility to develop a resilience policy, an investment policy. Therefore, our group supports the treaty, but I and colleague Zoé Genot will refrain from us.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, dear colleagues, we are discussing here bills for the establishment of a European Stability Mechanism and the amendment of an article of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, against the background of a eurozone deeply troubled and a euro collapsing. The current European governments are only making things worse. When the various European countries still had their own currency, not so long ago, before the introduction of the euro currency, the value of that currency reflected the strength of their economies.

What follows is elementary economy that everyone can understand. If the economy of a country performed poorly, the value of its currency decreased. As a result, the products of the country concerned became internationally cheaper, so that the foreign country purchased more of these products and the economy re-attracted. If the economy of a country performed strongly, the value of the currency increased so that citizens had more purchasing power and could buy more domestic and especially foreign goods. In this way, the economic and financial problems of a country could be settled through the currencies of the countries themselves.

The introduction of the euro has abolished this whole self-regulatory system. Weak countries in the south of the eurozone had a much too strong currency with the euro, making their products too expensive. The strong northern countries had a relatively weak currency, so that the growth of consumer purchasing power did not follow the growth of the economy. The economies of the South have become weaker and weaker due to the lack of ability to implement currency corrections themselves over the past decade. The South has built up huge debts that it can never repay again. In order to save the euro, the north, where citizens have already suffered a loss of purchasing power, must now also pay or discharge the debts of the south. The eurozone has become one giant Belgium, a big Belgium where huge tax transfers flow from the north to the south.

Together with the EFSM, bilateral loans of all kinds, the involvement of risk as a shareholder of the IMF and our share in the European Central Bank, Belgium had already issued €70 billion in loans and guarantees for all kinds of aid programs for eurozone countries in need last year. As a result, the situation in the eurozone is only worse. On top of that, there are also the risks that Belgium risks from the actions of the European Central Bank, which lends 1 000 billion euros to weak banks and buys rubble bonds for almost 300 billion euros that no one else wants yet.

The problems are bigger than ever. Greece is falling further and further. Spain pays record interest rates that, despite the injection that Spain has had, do not reduce. They have been reduced by a few hours, but nothing more. Unemployment is rising day by day. Greeks and Spaniards take massive amounts of money from their savings accounts. Their banks swing and their economies shrink.

The confidence that things are going to go well is gone. The confidence in the approach so far has disappeared. Consumer confidence is gone.

Meanwhile, they are trying to accuse the opposition that they are the ones that make the euro bankrupt. However, the euro was condemned to fail from the very beginning. During the discussions on the introduction of the European monetary union, sixteen years ago, and on the introduction of the euro, twelve or fourteen years ago, all economists pointed out that the euro was a political and not an economic project. The use of a currency as an economic instrument was a political project. It was a dangerous experiment, with the money and with the prosperity of the citizens.

Not those who have always pointed to this will let Europe go bankrupt. However, those who have set up and conducted this experiment against better knowledge and still want to continue it, are responsible for it.

Europe’s most recent response to today’s euro crisis is the ESM or European Stability Mechanism. The European rulers hope that a sufficiently well-funded, permanent funding mechanism will have an effect that will build confidence in the financial markets.

The Belgian Parliament is expected to approve the ESM this month. The new treaty will obligate us to help countries in financial difficulties. However, also disadvantaged banks will be able to claim the fund. Together, the eurozone countries guarantee €700 billion, of which €500 billion can be borrowed.

Like the EFSF, the ESM will be largely financed by borrowing, with Member States providing guarantees. New, however, is that the ESM will also receive direct capital from the Member States, for which most Member States will have to make more debt again. In total, it is about 80 billion euros, which is transferred in cash by the Member States. There are also guarantees in the amount of EUR 620 billion.

The Belgian contribution to the European Stability Mechanism amounts to more than 24 billion euros. Cash we will have to transfer almost 3 billion euros – 2.8 billion euros, to be precise.

The treaty stipulates that capital is gradually accumulated through deposits in discs, spread over five years. However, due to the escalation of the crisis over the past few months, especially as Spain is also looking beyond the horizon of the countries in serious difficulties, the Eurogroup has decided to accelerate the deposits and spread over three instead of over five years. So there will be two drives paid in 2012, two drives in 2013 and another last drive in 2014.

In total, including the capital deposits and the guarantees, Belgium will have to pay approximately EUR 2 500 per Belgian in order to initially settle the European Stability Mechanism. Apart from these capital deductions, we will have to guarantee for the rest of those 24 billion euros. How will that work? The European Stability Mechanism will simply, without our Parliament having anything to say about it, be able to demand that money.

Article 41.2 of the ESM Treaty states that a minimum of 15 % of capital of Member States must always be present in the ESM. If stocks fall below that 15 %, Member States will be promptly required to make a new cash payment, which they are obliged to pay. According to the ESM Treaty, as soon as the ESM requires it, we must “pay that money irrevocably and unconditionally, within seven days”.

The ESM Treaty puts our parliaments, and therefore the citizens of this country, out of play. In emergency cases, additional billions can be transferred without Belgium being able to prevent it, as a qualified majority of 85 % of the votes cast is sufficient. Belgium has only 3.5%. The concept of emergency is not defined throughout the Convention. There are no specific definitions, descriptions or conditions under which one speaks of an emergency. Thus, with this bill, we lose control and our veto on the spending of billions of euros, which will be asked of us in those emergencies. The directors of the ESM will decide on this.

The draft law approving the Treaty establishing the ESM has thus far-reaching consequences. It means transferring billions of euros from the northern to the southern EU countries and establishing an undemocratic transfer union at European level that European citizens have never asked for. It also means the end of much of Belgium’s financial, economic and political sovereignty and is thus also a threat to the future of Flanders.

Just as most European citizens – think of the referendums on the Treaty of Nice and the way it was bypassed by the introduction of the Treaty of Lisbon – have never been given the opportunity to speak about the European Union, the introduction of the euro and the accession of new Member States, now this ESM Treaty is also imposed on them. The anti-democratic European Union does not like accountability.

The Belgian people’s representatives therefore have no influence on lending to countries in trouble. Only in Germany and Finland is there a possibility, and to some extent, to influence Parliament on decisions relating to the effective granting of ESM loans to countries in difficulty.

In the Netherlands, Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager has personally promised that he will conduct consultations with the Second Chamber. The Belgian government will only subsequently explain what has already been decided by the ESM.

Our country cannot veto ESM loans granted in emergencies or emergencies, unlike Germany and even France and Italy, because Belgium does not have a veto right. Article 4(4) of the ESM Treaty provides for an urgent voting procedure in which it is possible to decide with a majority of 85 % of the votes, as I have just said, on granting assistance to a country in difficulty. Belgium, with 3.5% of the votes, does not respond to this.

However, there is a condition for the activation of the ESM, namely that both the European Commission and the European Central Bank declare that otherwise “the economic and financial sustainability of the euro zone will be endangered.” If the European Commission and the European Central Bank so propose, that will suffice to enable the ESM to enter into force. However, that definition applies to almost every crisis within the euro area. Only Germany, France and Italy hold at least 15 % of the ESM capital and therefore, in proportion, equal numbers of votes. These countries have a veto.

As a result of Finnish resistance – the Finns have had the courage to resist – in that emergency procedure a very small portion of the money will be established as an emergency reserve fund for the benefit of all ESM member states, and that to cover any collisions on the loan in question. However, it is not a fund that would be large enough to cover the losses of, for example, a government bankruptcy.

The European Stability Mechanism is actually nothing more and nothing less than a coup with the currency as an instrument, a monetary coup.

Article 32 of the Treaty text gives legal immunity to all ESM assets and ESM documents. That is another aspect. The assets and documents of the ESM, as well as their directors and employees, are entitled to legal immunity. In other words, the ESM can bring countries and legal entities before the court, but it cannot itself be brought before the court. It is inviolable and is not liable to anyone. Our tax money thus goes into the hands of an unelected body, which stands above all parliaments and above all courts. The citizens – in our country especially the Flamings – are allowed to work hard and pay. The Flames must not only keep Wallonia up, but must also help to keep Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy and possibly France up. After 182 years of Flemish struggle, this is what we have achieved.

With this ESM, we have become the slave of Belgium and the slave of the eurozone.

Another aspect is that the control of ESM’s expenditure is classified as insufficient. Several European accounting chambers, including the Dutch, have expressed severe criticism of the way billions of euros of tax money will be spent by the ESM. This is not a unicum in the European Union. The European Court of Auditors has refused to approve the EU budget for years because of the excessive margin of error.

Although the criticism of the European Accounting Chambers was expressed some time ago, the ESM Treaty was not sufficiently adjusted. In April 2012, the Dutch General Court of Auditors reiterated its objections to the European Parliament. It denounced the lack of democratic control and public supervision. It is already a sign for the start of the ESM that there are already serious doubts about the credibility of the institution itself.

There are also doubts as to whether the ESM is legal within the framework of existing European regulations. Therefore, if necessary, we had to approve a bill to amend Article 136 of the European Labour Convention. It has always been questionable whether all the emergency loans granted so far are permissible. Article 125 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union states that each country is liable for its own debts. It is the famous no-bailout clause which guaranteed the member states joining the European Union that they would never have to pay for the debts of other member states. Therefore, the emergency loans so far occurred through a temporary emergency fund, the EFSM. By amending Article 136 of the EU Treaty, European governments want to regularise the situation for a permanent fund by incorporating a provision that explicitly permits a debt fund to do so. Not only the eurozone countries but all 27 member states must implement the treaty amendment. It is only a question of whether they will all do so before the beginning of July when they want the ESM to come into force to provide money to the bankrupt Spanish banks.

While this treaty has unleashed a lot of emotions and debates in the Netherlands and Germany, there was almost no attention to it in our country. However, the treaty seals the Belgian population with a billions in bills. It is not even certain that the ESM will solve the euro crisis. It is more likely that it will not solve the crisis. This is the experience with Spain this week. The effect of the 100 billion euro promise on Monday caused only a few hours for the Spanish funding costs to decline before they went up unremittingly again.

The whole south of the eurozone has a overvalued currency that makes growth difficult. Tax transfers can only serve to pay the unemployment benefits, not to create jobs. As long as there is no growth, we will not be able to get out of the crisis. As I explained at the beginning, these countries have been deprived of the possibility of adjusting their own currencies to boost growth and economic growth.

No matter how gigantic a €700 billion emergency fund may seem, in practice it will not be able to spend more than €500 billion, combined with the EFSF which has another €200 billion at its disposal. 500 billion euros is, according to all experts, insufficient to capture major shocks. They say that at least 2 000 billion will be needed to bring calm by the end of 2014. When borrowing to countries in difficulty, it will always be the citizens who will bear all the costs. The proposal to force financial institutions to take losses on their risky but profitable loans was wiped off the table. Our Green colleagues have rightly pointed out this.

Not only can the crisis not be solved, but it can also become even more expensive. There are continuous proposals to extend the emergency fund or to allow it to provide direct support to banks and not just indirectly, as is now the case. In that case, the ESM would have to have more capital than the current €700 billion. Article 10 of the ESM Treaty allows for simple decision by the Council of Governors, the body of the Eurozone Finance Ministers within the ESM. A treaty amendment is no longer necessary. According to this Article 10, a change in the corporate capital comes into effect only, I quote “after the ESM members have notified the depositary of the completion of their applicable national procedures”. This does not mean that countries can make such a decision subject to the consent of their national parliaments. Once our Minister of Finance – who, by the way, enjoys immunity within the ESM – has made the notification, the decision cannot be reversed, whatever the Parliament and the national courts of the Member States decide.

There is also a strange element in the whole system. The countries that are in trouble must also contribute to the capital. There is, of course, a logic in that. All Member States must contribute, but we are actually already paying for contributions from countries such as Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain. They are all already financed by the other euro countries and must also make cash contributions to the ESM. The obligation of ESM members to contribute to the social capital in accordance with this Convention shall not be affected by the fact that such ESM member is eligible for or receives financial assistance from the ESM.

It is true that if one euro country does not ratify the ESM Treaty, the other countries do not have to adjust but reduce the capacity of the ESM.

Another aspect is that countries that do not pay lose their voting rights under Article 4.8. It may seem surreal, but a rough calculation learns that if Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy end up in that situation and do not pay, Germany and France together have more than two-thirds of the votes in the ESM. Pieter Cleppe of the independent think tank Open Europe points out the important political impact of the ESM. It could be a lever for Germany and France to influence policies at the level of the European Union.

In fact, the ESM is an instrument that indirectly influences the European level on what Eurocrats until recently considered the unattainable territory of the Member States, namely influence on the national budgets.

Currently, approximately two-thirds of the regulation for the 500 million Europeans in the different Member States is made at the European level. We know it ourselves too. In the committees, we are primarily concerned with the adoption of decrees at the European level and the transposition of them into national legislation.

One aspect of the Member States, namely the budget, has so far remained out of hand. The European budget itself is already proportionate to the modest level of about 1% of GDP. As a result of the Lisbon Treaty, which has also been created in a fundamentally undemocratic way, it becomes possible from 2014 that the countries of the euro area can vote in the minority of the other Member States of the European Union when rules are decided by qualified majority.

Aspects of the Lisbon Treaty, which involves working with a qualified majority, put us in a situation where it would be best for the eurozone countries to exercise a qualified majority within the whole of the 27 Member States of the European Union. The eurozone will then account for 65% of the population in the European Union.

Since the ESM is important for the financial situation of the Member States, it can be used as a lever to force consensus within the euro area on files linked through the traditional cow trade. This consensus can then be imposed by a majority on the rest of the European Union.

The loss of the Belgian veto right on the granting of ESM loans can therefore have far-reaching consequences, far beyond merely the granting or refusal of loans to Member States in difficulty.

That will probably be revealed in the future and then many people will be frightened by the political implications of something they thought was just a temporary solution to a temporary crisis. We do not believe that this is the case.

I would like to respond for a moment to the piracy of other members of the committee because we had the courage to ruin in their eyes the fun of an uncritical, undiscussed and preferably anonymous adoption of the draft laws implementing this ESM Treaty and amending Article 136.

We are here as an opposition. We have always stood here as opposition during the discussions of European affairs. Mr Annemans has just said this. During the discussions of the Maastricht Treaty, the introduction of the EMU and the introduction of the euro, we have always pointed out the possible problems of this crazy political experiment that in a criminal way plays with the wealth and money of the citizens of Europe.

I can only say that it is the duty of the opposition to lead opposition. What is a democracy when everybody jacks and runs under social pressure or under pressure of so-called emergency situations? To those who say that we are principled, I can tell that it is indeed sometimes about principles. In this case, it is about principles and the future will show it.

Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentlemen, the text to be considered today aims to clarify the tools of aid and financing for the countries of the euro area in difficulty. In this context, the FDF will support this text, like the majority of the groups in this parliament.

Europe needs structural solutions and can no longer rely on short-term bailouts. Europe needs solidarity between countries with the strongest economies and countries with the weakest economies. It must rely on a sustainable and institutionalized solidarity mechanism, which replaces the short-term solutions that had been implemented so far. The recent news, the problems of Greece and those of Spain, only confirm this necessity. In our opinion, it is also at the European level that the banking risk that now affects Spain must be addressed.

However, I allow myself to say that we do not fully adhere to the form of the device that is thus created because it belongs to intergovernmentalism. The supreme decision-making body, the Governing Council, consists of the finance ministers of the euro area Member States, a member of the European Commission, the President of the European Central Bank and the President of the Eurogroup. The management mechanism of this instance is also part of this intergovernmental perspective as the most important decisions will require unanimousness while the other decisions will be taken by qualified majority, corresponding to 80 % of the votes, or simple majority. The emergency procedure will require 80% of the votes.

I clearly regret the absence of a real European democracy, the absence of the European Parliament in this arrangement. The FDF group wants to trigger a reflection on a true European federalism at all levels and that it is no longer, as in this intergovernmental mechanism, the strongest of governments that decides or the strongest of governments that can, alone, impose its veto on others. In this context, the involvement of the European Parliament and the national parliaments and the joints between them are obviously a fundamental issue because only a true European federalism will gradually fill the current differences between the different European economies. They should be able to benefit, more than today, from greater labour mobility, mechanisms for public financial transfers between States, a genuine European budget because these elements constitute the basis of solidarity within Europe and the balance between our European economies. We must also not forget, as some have already mentioned, the current negative impact of the absence of tax harmonisation at European level. Belgium is aware of this because tax competition, in particular in terms of corporate taxes, does not promote the return to the fiscal balance of several of the European economies.

Furthermore, many deplore the lack of supervision of the financial stability of the euro area and identify this deficiency as one of the main causes of the banking crisis that several economies of the euro area are now experiencing.

In this context, we therefore support the proposal for a banking union recently issued by the European Commission and the President of the European Central Bank, because the major European banks must be controlled, supervised and rescued if necessary at European level as they participate in this large European single financial and banking market.

In short, I finally join the analysis of some economists who advocate the establishment of a common economic policy, which is based on a government and a parliament. The latest European treaties go this way, small steps unfortunately, because they promote the development of this more integrated European policy, this economic government.

So let us be coherent and develop, more than today, the economic aspect of the European Union on this model!

The FDF will therefore vote in favour of this text, but we wanted to emphasize in this debate the importance of considering a new Economic Europe.

The European Stability Mechanism in the so-called ESM Treaty, which we discuss here today, is an important issue.

However, when I determine how quickly the ESM Treaty is being chased by the House and Senate, it seems like it is a fact divers. All parties, except the Flemish Interest, find it hardly worth a solid debate. While the present treaty in the Netherlands and Germany releases a lot of emotions and debate, it was given little attention in our country too by the press. The fact is that the treaty plagues the citizens of this country with a billions in invoice and that it deserves the necessary attention.

First, the term stability mechanism is a heavy euphemism. The word stability is a school example of Orwell’s newspeak. The EU Technocrats in Brussels are constantly talking about stability. Eurobonds are called stability bonds and European taxes are now called financial transaction taxes.

That Orwellic language must conceal that it is actually a further expropriation of the sovereignty of the European nation-states. In fact, the treaty we are discussing here today should be called the Treaty on the European Sovereignty Theft Mechanism to make Europe a transfer union according to the Belgian model, which encapsulates billions of tax money in antidemocratic way from North to South.

It may be a pretty long name, but it is at least an honest name, which covers the load.

It is also called a permanent emergency fund. The simple fact that one must move from a temporary to a permanent fund in order to keep the euro standing characterizes the failure of the postmodern dictatorship, which is called the European Union.

Let’s start from the beginning and ask ourselves why such an extensive mechanism is brought to life. The crisis takes everyone as the reason, of course, the eurocrisis, that everyone knows, but why is that eurocrisis there? This is the question that we must ask.

When this question is answered by the mainstream media or by the many europhile politicians, one turns a wheel before the eyes of the European peoples.

Even the European peoples are angered in a plain populist and false manner, because one knows well enough that it is the euro itself, which is the main cause of the economic crisis, because one is too proud and too cowardly to admit that the introduction of the euro, as well as that the undemocratic creation of the political union, which requires such a single currency, was a crumbling mistake, and because one is like the death for the voice of the people, that that decision would severely punish, as may happen in September in the Netherlands.

Without a unified union with a single currency, everything would have been much worse, as the mantra of the europhiles, the eurocrats, the Europeans, the eurofederalists and the euronationalists reads. Grotesque ghost images and doomscenarios are released on the population. The Van Rompuys and the Verhofstadts of this world would like to put the tone.

Without the euro and the EU, we would have experienced a crisis like in the 1930s. That several countries that neither have the euro nor are part of the Union, such as Switzerland and Norway, are doing much better economically and are much less affected by the crisis, is wiped out under the mat.

Without the euro and the European Union, even peace in Europe would be on the slope, says the dogma. Words like chaos and war have never been so subject to inflation as today. In Europe before the Maastricht Treaty, in 1993, we all walked around in bear shells and lived in caves. The simplistic deception is: the world is large and all European countries are small; there is globalization and we can only survive if we become one together; if we do not, we go down and we become as poor again as before the introduction of the euro.

But were we so poor before the introduction of the euro? On the contrary, the euro has cost us a lot of money! Research by the Dutch PVV has recently proved this. Never has Europe been more under the wind than in the years before the introduction of the euro. The European elites are blinded by self-deception. They engage in hopeless terrorism and violate the democracy of the nation-states, in order at all costs to save their sinking EU ship.

The EU should not be called antidemocratic, but actually antidemocratic. It is not nationalism that is a danger, but EU or Euronationalism. The mechanism is very clear to me.

What you are going to say about the European project is very strange. You make absolute abstraction of all realizations. There are countries that have made great progress with regional development and new transport networks. You select a few regions, of which you can say very selectively that they may have invested. In every form of solidarity there are investors on the one hand and individuals who benefit from the contributions on the other. I think you are greatly undermining the essence of the European Union and give a very selective reading of the achievements of the European Union.

It is a fact that we are for Europe and for solidarity. Solidarity with the peoples of Europe must be done for us in a transparent way and on a voluntary basis, not through an undemocratic mechanism that even gives blanco cheques. This country gives billions and does not even have a veto right, and the population does not even agree to it. Let’s look at the Netherlands, where opinion polls have been conducted. There is absolutely no support for spending billions of dollars on aid to countries in misery, which they themselves have sought. I wonder where the democratic support is. I am convinced that the people in our country do not agree with this either. Organize a referendum, ask the people. It is organized in a democratic way, I have no problem with it.

It is absolutely an illusion to think that voluntary solidarity will mean a lot for those who are truly needy. That projects us back to the times of beefstock socialism and much beggarship. It is the central task of the government to establish and monitor solidarity mechanisms. If you call that something for volunteering, I don’t know what we can do in our legislative assembly on meaningful work. If solidarity should not be addressed structurally and should not be poured into regulations...

Transparent and carried by the public!

... if this is not imperative to be imposed on the population and you simply limit it to voluntary, then we will see if you walk around with your hat for the needy Flaming, how much you will be able to collect to build a solidarity mechanism.

I am disappointed with your appreciation of Christian love. We are even more positive about this, colleague Deseyn.

Solidarity is the most abused word that exists.

Today is June 14, 2012. It is a fantastic birthday. Today is Tax Freedom Day. From now on, we no longer work for the tax authorities, but we can start working for ourselves.

We are not voting on anything here, but give a blank cheque to a vessel without ground. That is what is happening here.

I will give an example. Now we can work for ourselves. We are in charge of 54 billion euros in the Dexiadossier. Not Europe is guaranteed, but we are guaranteed. We give 100 billion euros to Spain for the same banks that have deceived us. I hear the PS and the Greens talk here about the banks in question. However, we guarantee 54 billion euros of our money. Of the aforementioned 100 billion euros, we must also raise 3.78 billion euros.

The above is not solidarity. This has become madness.

We give to the new fund, which we have nothing to say about in the long run. There are limits to the current emergency fund. In the new fund, capital increases can be carried out, as much as one wants. We give a blank cheque to a vessel without ground.

The above is the reason why I am opposed. The Fund has nothing to do with solidarity. It is almost seen with madness.

I can only agree with what Mr. Dedecker explains. After all, if all the financial commitments of banks and the current 24 billion euros for the tax freedom day were included, people could already do Christmas shopping before they could work for their own account.

Mr. Speaker, I will conclude my reasoning.

Without a unified union with a single currency, as the mantra of the europhiles reads, all ghost images and doomscenarios would fall upon us. Without the euro, everything would have been much worse.

The mechanism in question is very clear to me. The European peoples have been and are an undemocratic form of a single currency and a political, European Union. When such a union does not logically work, it is hectic that the only solution is more European Union. We are told that we can solve the crisis only through organised solidarity between the Member States, which requires an economic, fiscal and political union.

More European Union to save the single currency means, for example, the so-called euro bonds as well as the terrible ESM Treaty, which we are talking about here today.

The cancelled song that the solution to the euro crisis requires more European Union was also the list of the very first theorists of the European Union. They were of the opinion that economic cooperation should be started, which no one can oppose. Ultimately, such cooperation forces countries to form a political union in the long run. That was the strategy. That was the trap, where we are now in the middle.

Everyone has stepped into it and is stepping into it again today with the current ESM Treaty. Everyone believes the fairy tale, except, of course, the Flemish Belang.

Since the Maastricht Treaty in 1993, there has been a sluggish process in which the European institutions are increasingly attracting more power.

Under the motto of never again war and so on, the euro-elites have begun to seize national sovereignty. The Austrian leader of the Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, Hannes Swoboda, recently said: “The Netherlands has long lost sovereignty.” The ESM Treaty is the next, new, gigantic step in that process of power transfer.

Colleagues, the crisis today is not only economic, but also political, because for a political federation one needs a people and a political space and they simply do not exist. The European Union is a pepper-hard bureaucracy looking for a nation. The Eurocrats therefore imitate a state, with a flag, a national anthem, a president and a parliament. A theatre of illusion to cover up the fact that the European language does not exist, therefore not even the European culture or the character of the European people. The political formation that we are getting in Europe can never be a democratic formation.

I will give an example. The Finn Olli Rehn, a European Commissioner with ⁇ great power, is today in a lot of interest. We all wait with excitement for his signals, as he decides about money and he distributes the fines. Has our people voted for Olli Rehn? and no. Yet he has power over us. How does that come? Because, as writes the Dutch eurosceptic Leon de Winter, “he was early in the corridors of European mythology.” He is the prototype of the Eurocrat who was in succession in the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the Barroso I committee. He was also a professor of European Studies. Thro ⁇ those years, together with other Olli’s, he has developed his own ideology, in particular that the European project should be saved at all costs. Money does not matter.

You make strange comparisons. Have the people of Henegouwen been able to vote for the Minister of Finance? He also judges their fate. You are a strong opponent of a federal constituency.

Very correct, but if you divide the country, that problem is also solved.

If you would transpose that into the Belgian model, you would find that your reasoning is very little consistent. In addition, it costs a handful of money; it is not about 1% of our GDP. You need to make the comparison.

The problem you have raised is indeed correct. It is very consistent. That’s one of the reasons why we want to embrace this country and prefer our own people.

So money does not matter. In europhile circles, admitting that the project has failed is the same as committing suicide. Everyone continues on the established path. Additional billions are drawn, printed or virtually created to subordinate the facts to the fiction that Swedish culture in a political union is compatible with Greek or Italian. The unification of Europe is sacred and no one asks yet whether a peaceful and prosperous Europe, which the Flemish Interest advocates, is not better served with unity in diversity, without a common currency and without imposed solidarity in the form of all sorts of so-called stability mechanisms such as this permanent emergency fund.

The President of the Eurogroup, Jean-Claude Juncker, described the functioning of the European Union in a quote. I quote: “We decide something, then we put it in the middle and wait some time to see what happens. If there is no misfortune, there is no rebellion — because most do not understand what was decided — then we go further, step by step, until there is no return.” This, by the way, is in sharp contrast with the Netherlands where the debate has been raging in all its intensity for months and is an essential part of the elections in September.

There is a power strike of historical magnitude. This so-called European Stability Mechanism is currently the exponent of this. That power struggle wants to counter the Flemish Importance at whatever cost. Cultures and identities in Europe will continue to differ profoundly and there is nothing wrong with that. A European flag and a European president do not change that.

The introduction of the European Union and the euro proved fatal mistakes. You don’t have to be clear-sighted to predict the coming end of the euro. A simple market economic analysis is sufficient. A common currency is by definition a crisis currency and Europe is subject to a new monetary system. The current rescue packages and the current ESM Treaty only postpone that moment.

The European Economic Community was an excellent vehicle at the time, but the introduction of the euro linked the budgets of the countries concerned, and thus also the over-spending. As much as we despise and desire to denounce the artificial State of Belgium — and therefore also do not want the Belgian franc, for all clarity — we must admit that the euro has proved to be the most reckless experiment in the history of money circulation.

Currency unions, such as the temporary Nordic currency union of the Scandinavian countries, can only exist as exchange rate unions in which their own national currencies are not disclosed. In fact, they place the responsibility for the internal value of the money for the full 100% on the individual states and their central banks. This, by the way, also applied to the EEC, which in 1979 introduced the ECU, a European accounting unit intended to fix exchange rates and as a basis for the circulation between the different banks.

State and currency cannot simply be separated and are the only way to link national prosperity to European or global integration. Without a stable currency for which each country is responsible individually, there is no need to expect steady economic growth. Only with a new and improved European monetary system, similar to the pre-Euro era, can Europe secure its future and integrate itself smoothly into the global economy of the 21st century.

Moreover, cultural identities cannot be wiped out by official decrees from Brussels. The Flemish Interest rejects the principle of one European currency, one European Empire and one European leader. The Flemish Belang is a strong advocate of a peaceful and prosperous, but also diverse Europe, because it is precisely that last attribute that has provided prosperity.

The ESM is the new dictator of the European Union. It is in fact a monetary coup of more than 24 billion euros, which will absolutely not solve the euro crisis. That money will not solve the European crisis, we can see this week, after the experience with Spain. The 100 billion euro promise to Spain has reduced Spanish financing costs for two or three hours. After that, they went up to the height again.

No matter how gigantic the 700-billion-euro emergency fund may seem, who says this amount will be enough? Several experts say there is a need of up to 2 billion euros. Furthermore, there are also continuous proposals to extend the emergency fund or to allow it to provide direct, rather than indirect, support to banks. So it becomes even worse. In addition, several European Chamber of Auditors have already expressed strong criticism of the way the billions of euros of tax money will be spent by the ESM. The Dutch General Court of Auditors criticized “the lack of democratic control and public supervision”.

It is notable that, even before the launch of the ESM, there were serious doubts about the credibility of the institution.

When it comes to Flemish Interest, the citizen, the voter, moves. The voter should be able to decide whether the key of the Belgian treasury will be handed over to the European Union. Therefore, a referendum should be held on this ESM Treaty but also on the future of Europe. The Flemish Interest does not believe in the way the European Union has been created. We believe in a prosperous and peaceful Europe of free nations with free trade as it existed in the past. The majority of the people do not want a political European transfer union according to the Belgian model. They do not want the transfer of sovereignty to an undemocratic and uncontrollable institution that needs to hold up countries that have made a piece of it themselves. They do not want Flanders to become a province in a European superstate. They want, like the Flemish Belang, a united but free Europe with a sovereign Flemish republic. They don’t want us to sign a blanco cheque of 24 billion with this new permanent emergency fund to spit euro countries that can’t stop their own pants, while our own taxpayers are simultaneously pressured with burdens and cuts.

Cyprus has also been added to the so-called PIGS eurozone countries. So the question is not whether the euro will fall, the question is only when.

Because the Flemish Interest – precisely because we are in favor of that prosperous and peaceful Europe of free nations – says yes to a free Europe, it definitely says no to this European Union and no to the ratification of this treaty.

I want to reassure my colleagues. I am the last speaker in the row for the Flemish Interest Group. Of course, we could also have registered all twelve on the speaker list, but we held it on a substantive debate. We do not want to philibustic, do not start reading from Greek works or so, because we all find that not so relevant. We therefore stick to the subject of the present draft laws. It’s now almost 20.45 hours, so it doesn’t matter too much now; we still have some time.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, you will have understood that for the Flemish Interest Group today is a black day for democracy, if I can say so. Not only is the European Union losing its legitimacy among the people at a rapid pace, but the amendments to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union within the framework of Article 136 and the legal framework for the establishment of a permanent emergency fund must apparently also be pursued by Parliament with a rot, at the rate of a hst.

Just the small addition to the Article 136 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union has in our opinion increasing consequences. Voor alle klarheid lees ik de toevoeging zoals zij in de originele text van het verdrag, in het Engels, is opgenomen. The Member States whose currency is the euro may establish a stability mechanism to be activated if necessary to safeguard the stability of the euro area as a whole. The granting of any acquired financial assistance under the mechanism shall be subject to strict conditionality.”

This added phrase gives the European Commission full freedom to create a stability mechanism.

However, those who pay close attention can discover an adder under the grass. The amendment is formulated in such a way that it is not limited to financial stability. This amendment allows the European Commission to take decisions in very different areas without further requiring the consent of the national parliaments.

Colleagues, of two things one. At a time when the European Union is almost in flames, at a time when the European Union has lost its way, at a time when the European Union is swinging, at a time when the euro breaks in all its joints, at a time when the euro crisis runs like a wild fire, at a time when 100 billion euros are again pumped into the groundless pit of a corrupt Spanish banking system, there is apparently no time for political debate, nor time for reflection and reflection. The European Union continues to move unhindered.

In fact, the euro-friendly parties are putting the blade on it, choosing the blind flight forward, because the euro is at stake. It must go quickly now. However, we note that all political parties, with the exception of the Flemish Interest, in our Parliament vote for even more of the same.

As persuaded europhiles, persuaded Europeans, euronationalists, the know-I-many eurofreaks, you are all convinced that even more interference from the European Union and therefore even less sovereignty of the Member States and, on top of that, even more money transfers from North to South should turn the tide. As if the only solution is even more European Union. Who believes these fairy tales?

The Flemish Interest does not fundamentally agree with this. For us, the adjustment of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union is not a mere matter. For us, the establishment of the European Stability Mechanism is not simply something that is arranged between soup and potatoes. Both themes, the adaptation of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the establishment of a permanent emergency fund, deserve a thorough debate, a thorough consideration of facts and options on how we deal with the European Union.

Yes, colleagues, the Flemish Belang is convinced that the entire European thought in the last few decades has grown into a monetary and political coup by the European Union. The upcoming adaptation of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the establishment of a permanent emergency fund brings us straight to the European dictatorship. It is not a dictatorship in the violent sense, it is totalitarian in the sense that one has created a legal framework in which one cannot oppose the decision of the European Union.

Anyone who knows a little about his political history must admit that the European Union at the outset was not an antinational project. The European Union, on the contrary, was a project that started from respecting the cultural identity of the Member States to enable economic integration and peaceful cooperation. For the buildings of the European Union, not only the EU flag, but also the flags of all Member States are traditionally wrapped. “Unity in Diversity,” it still reads on the letter paper of the European Parliament. This may also explain why the whole project of the European Union in the Flemish Movement traditionally relied on quite a bit of support and sympathy. The European Union as a cooperative alliance with respect for national identities was seen as an opposition to the centralist Belgian State which sought to wipe away the Flemish identity in favor of the French-speaking unitary state.

As soon as the former fighters of May ’68 ascended to higher political positions, something began to shift. In recent decades, the anti-nationalist agenda has taken the lead. National states and borders were past. There had to be extensive integration. The European Union ceased to engage in its core economic activities but began to interfere with almost everything: social policy, working conditions, taxation, law, – from maternity leave to marriage law – education, foreign policy, asylum policy and immigration policy. The borders were wiped off by the Schengen Agreement and the introduction of the euro as a single currency made the political goal on the horizon: a European superstate.

Against this evolution, the Flemish Belang wants to oppose itself with all its fibers, with hand and tooth, with fire and sword, because it finds this whole evolution not only undemocratic but also antidemocratic.

A few years ago, the Netherlands and France spoke out against the European Constitution. The outcome was clear. The Dutch and the French wanted less of the European Union and more of the Netherlands and France. The political elite took no interest in this and insisted on the Lisbon Treaty. This decoction of the European Constitution completely ignored the wishes of the Dutch and French people. It did not bring us less, but rather more European Union.

And now history repeats itself. The arrogant Europhiles have learned nothing. They re-press their intentions. Meanwhile, the monetary union is collapsing under the feet of Europe. How do we know that the majority of the Flemish or the inhabitants of this country want the permanent emergency fund? Why do we not hold a referendum on the future of the European Union?

No, that is all not important. Soon, a majority of the House will print these bills with the eyes open and in a slave way because they again think they know better. That is now a typical example of the arrogance of power, resulting in even more European Union and away with national sovereignty. This is what is called a false democracy.

Colleagues, if you put the question to the population, then we are convinced that the majority of the people, of the Flemish, does not want a European transfer union, a Belgium to the tenth power if you want. The population does not want the transfer of sovereignty to an undemocratic, uncontrollable institution, which must keep up countries that themselves have made a piece of it.

The population does not want us to sign a blank cheque of billions of euros to eurozone countries that do not have their own accounts in order, while the Flemish taxpayer is beaten by the ears with billions of tax increases and cuts.

When I use the word blanco cheque, that is not to indicate that there will be no number on the cheque. This country will contribute €24.4 billion to the emergency fund. This amounts to 2,400 euros per inhabitant. This is the sixth largest contribution of the 17 eurozone countries, after Germany, France, Italy, even after Spain and after the Netherlands.

But this does not end the shirt. The ESM Treaty also provides that in emergency cases 85% of the votes are sufficient to grant new loans. With its 3.5% of voting rights, Belgium is largely unable to adapt to this.

The approval of the ESM Treaty therefore means a new delegation of powers to the European Union, together with the new blanco cheque of more than 24 billion euros. The consequences for the taxpayer cannot be overlooked. In fact, the Flemish Interest considers this to be an irresponsible risk.

Even the numbers we are talking about are not ackefiets. They are rather numbers to get rid of. The ESM will become a permanent emergency fund for the euro area, with a social capital of €700 billion to guarantee a loan capacity of €500 billion. Of this, 80 billion euros must be spent in cash tax money. Guarantees amount to EUR 620 billion.

If, as a result of the absorption of losses, the full capital falls below EUR 80 billion, an additional capital payment may be requested to restore the level of the full capital.

It would be almost forgotten, but this is about tax money and it must be paid over time by the residents of the European Union as soon as the European Stability Mechanism requests it.

With this capital, the ESM can lend money to banks in need and to eurozone countries in financial difficulties. The ESM thus also acts as a banking institution that will be allowed to manage thousands of billions of dollars without requiring a banking authorisation and thus without having to draw anything from the rules of the financial supervisors for the other financial institutions.

Loans to countries are accompanied by strict conditions, such as those imposed on Greece. The conditions applicable to loans to reckless bankers are currently unclear. I wonder if they will be so strict.

The Belgian capital contribution is thus fixed at EUR 24.34 billion, first in a five-year time frame, but due to the further emergency crisis in Europe, including in Spain, the entry into force of the emergency fund has been delayed by the European Commission.

Hence the time pressure to complete the job before 1 July, so as not to talk about the personal prestige of the Minister of Finance with respect to his party partner, euro-oppergod Herman Van Rompuy.

Mr. Minister, I have understood that you want again to be the absolute first of the class, at least the first as a slasher of the President of the European Council.

That is why this government must transfer to the ESM 2.8 billion euros of cash tax money by July 2014 in three sets, while the country guarantees the balance of 21.54 billion euros.

We would expect some transparency, but nothing at all. No one in the ESM is democratically elected and there is no democratic supervision or control of decision-making within the ESM.

There is not even any institution at national level that can ex post check the legality and efficiency of the ESM’s expenditure, nor accounts for the way it handles the tax money of citizens. This is a beautiful European democracy.

In addition, the ESM is permanent and the shares are also not tradable. So all the money we put into it, we will never see back, even when the crisis is over and the ESM is on a giant pot of tax money.

Not everything has yet been told. The mistake of the ESM trap is that, like its predecessors EFSF and EFSM, it saturates debt-stricken countries with even higher debts, to the great satisfaction of the bankers who can generate money without care and borrow at interest, knowing that all losses will be borne by the euro citizens. The permanent emergency fund thus simply ensures that the population can pay as much as possible for the financial mismanagement.

Responsibility is not involved. The ESM, the governors, the administrators and the staff are granted extensive immunity. The ESM can prosecute anyone but cannot be prosecuted, except by the members themselves. The ESM is therefore above the legal power.

Beyond these financial cracks there are three organizations of which no one is elected by the people, and which therefore never render accountability: the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, the so-called Troika. They will be bound to the loans what is called strict conditions. These conditions have nothing to do with the purpose of the loan, but require a Member State to pursue a policy that it has chosen in an undemocratic manner. Sarcastically speaking, they will have to bleed first.

Loans under strict conditions are not amounts of money that the country can spend at its own discretion. They are linked to projects. The lucrative projects are usually outsourced to foreign companies. Most of the money from the loans never goes to the country of destination, but is paid directly to foreign lenders, for the repayment of existing debts and interest, and to foreign companies that have implemented projects.

So little or no money enters the country, while the country must repay the loan as if the money was present in the country. In this way the bankers and the Troika can, of course, be sure that a new loan will be needed quite soon, and the whole devil’s game can start again. Also, the Troika can demand that all lucrative assets in the country be sold to foreign investors, such as there are: airports, telecommunications companies, concessions for gas and petroleum resources, and so on.

It is only when the population becomes discouraged and the country leaves the euro that it will ⁇ understand how cruelly it was oppressed under the name of European solidarity.

In fact, colleagues, the ESM is a mechanism without a stop button, without an emergency brake. If the ESM decides to increase the social capital, there will already be hundreds or potentially thousands of billions of euros in loans and risky claims. No ESM member will dare to refuse a capital increase and cause the spread of this financial soap bubble. Whoever enters now enters forever. Unless the euro falls apart. That the euro will fall apart is no longer a matter of discussion. The question is only: when?

Open Europe, a critical British think tank, calculated the total direct and indirect Belgian contribution to all kinds of European aid programmes when the ESM contours were formed. These commitments would already amount to ⁇ 70 billion euros, including 24.4 billion euros for the ESM, 15.3 billion euros for the EFSF in 2010, and a loan of 2.89 billion euros to Greece.

In addition to the total €240.9 billion, Open Europe takes into account the risk that Belgium is a shareholder of the IMF, also a major lender for the European aid programmes: €0.6 billion for Greece, and €5.3 billion for the IMF’s share in the loans of the EFSF.

In addition, Belgium still faces a risk in the original EFSM and through the ECB through the purchase programs of bonds of troubled countries. 70 billion euros total of risks, which represents 20 % of GDP of public debt. An enormous exposure if you ask us, which only takes into account the European risk. In early June, the Belgian government agreed to increase the guarantees for Dexia to 55 billion euros. With a share of 60.5 billion euros, Belgium guarantees approximately 33.3 billion euros. Due to the debt and banking crisis, the Belgian State has already issued more than 100 billion euros of loans and guarantees. Let us be honest, colleagues, such a mechanism is no longer explained to a normal human being. Here in this country for billions of savings and taxes are imposed, and in the South of Europe the billions of us are offered on a gift sheet. It is too crazy to go away.

Colleagues, the whole discourse about more European integration is somewhat contradictory to the whole mantra about the euro, where one moves to the establishment of a permanent emergency fund. The word “permanent” abundantly shows the grand failure of the reckless single currency project called the European Union. It is enough to consider the drowning on the European rescue boat. On 2 May 2010, Greece received 110 billion euros from the European Union. On 28 November 2010, Ireland received €67.5 billion in European Union aid. On 8 April 2011, Portugal received €78 billion in European Union aid. On June 9, Spain received 100 billion euros of aid from the European Union.

For a few days, the following file has been awaiting: Cyprus. As soon as they also appeal to the emergency fund, a quarter of the eurozone countries are on the infusion. The euro has truly become a crisis coin. Vlaams Belang has always warned that the impossible experiment that the European Union is would be destroyed. The European Union is based on the misconception that old cultural differences can be overcome by new supranational elites that will knit our lives. So I’m really curious who will stand up within the European Union at some point and say, “It’s been enough now, we stop that European knock-out.”

If the Flemish Interest Group brings an anti-EU story here today, it is because we are pro Europe and pro European. The Flemish Belang believes in a multidimensional Europe. The Flemish Interest advocates a Europe of different nations: united, strengthened, peaceful and prosperous, a free Europe with sovereign national states that trade with each other and conclude bilateral agreements. Consequently, we are opposed to further federalization of the European Union, where a financial political elite attracts more and more power.

The European Union commits, especially with the bills presented, a power strike on the national states and thus also extracts the sovereignty of the future Flemish republic.

Flanders is degraded in advance to a province, to a municipality in the European superstate, in which the modal Flamings, let us call them Mark and Maria, lack nest heat, financial stability and security.

With the euro, the European Union not only achieves a reckless single currency experiment that carries the current crisis in itself, but also a transfer union, a Belgium in general, let alone, in which the solidarity imposed by the European Union between the North and South is not only financially bad for Mark and Maria, but also carries the germs of conflict in itself.

Today, therefore, we give the key to our own sovereignty to the European Union, putting not only this Parliament but the entire population out of play. This cannot be accepted by the Flemish Interest.

The question now is whether the euro will implode by a German departure or by an expulsion of Greece and co.

In any case, as Flaming, we can be ambitious enough to assume that we can deal with a monetary union with the European head group. Flanders, especially when it is independent, is sufficiently strongly integrated into an economic northern head group around the Bundesbank. Together with our key trading partners, such as Germany, France and the Netherlands, and with other top-currency countries, Finland and/or Austria, we can work with the neuro strong enough to give Flanders the full benefits of a currency union that must either meet stricter concordance criteria.

The neuro can then search abundantly, by analogy of the EFTA criteria or the EFTA free trade associations, either with the non-euro countries, Denmark, Sweden and England, as well as non-EU countries, Norway and Switzerland, or invite these countries to a monetary cooperation or a exchange rate union, always on the basis of economic and therefore not on the basis of political desire.

The Flemish Interest Group will therefore, as the only party or one of the few parties, vote against the adaptation of the Treaty to the functioning of the European Union and the construction of the permanent emergency fund.

First, because the adjustment of the Treaty and the ESM fund balances on the edge of legality.

Second, because it creates a fictional governing body that can collect unlimited tax money, without democratic influence on spending, without democratic control over decision-making, without accountability by the undemocratically elected government.

Third, because it creates a bank that has unlimited free capital in the form of tax money.

Fourth, because it creates a bank that does not require a bank license, although this bank will be able to manage thousands of billions of euros.

Fifth, because it creates a bank that cannot be prosecuted and of which the board and all employees enjoy extensive immunity.

Sixth, because it creates a lender of hundreds of billions of euros of tax money that helps bankers, friends or not, with billions of euros of interest.

Seventh, because it creates a lender of hundreds of billions of euros, which itself determines which banker in need will receive a loan and which, other bank for an apple and an egg will be taken over by a friendly relationship of the ESM.

Eighth, because it creates a lender of hundreds of billions of euros, which plunges Eurozone countries in financial difficulties with even higher debts.

Ninth, because it creates a questionable organization, which is established with the intention of undermining the policy of democratically elected governments.

Tenth, because it is a construction that will not solve the euro crisis.

These are ten sufficiently substantiated arguments to reject both treaties and not give up the key to our economic, fiscal and political sovereignty.

I do not have to interfere with what you are reading. However, I noticed that you brought a book today. The title is: “Negotiating with the devil, when to negotiate, when to fight.” The title could not be better applied today.

I also brought a book. The title reads: “Europe is swinging.” In particular, the subtitle is important: “The Abduction of Europe by the European Union”.

Those of you who have still not understood that the euro is a crisis coin that is part of the European Union as a political project, in order to undermine the sovereignty of the European nation-states, I can only recommend reading that book. It is a real recommendation and an objective counterweight to the Flemish europhile media.

I thank you for your attention.

Mr. Speaker, dear colleagues, today, by voting for the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), this new European dictator, we will make citizens pay for the hundreds of billions of euros spent on rescue actions aimed at saving the euro, depriving in the future national parliaments of their sovereignty. The approval of this treaty is therefore equivalent to a coup d’état. No one is talking about it, the press is not even present. Neither the press nor the political parties. And I can only find that the approval of this treaty has been added to the speed and the catimini, despite the strong opposition in Europe and especially in Belgium, since we are many to have received hundreds of letters from citizens asking us to oppose this treaty which establishes a new fund to support the countries of the euro zone in crisis.

The purpose of the ESM is to safeguard the stability of the euro area permanently. This is positive, but what is much less, is that this safeguard will pass through the abandonment of our national sovereignty to the benefit of a totally antidemocratic structure and through the strengthening of automatic rules that will impose more and more rigour on the people. Within this mechanism, decisions will be taken by the Governing Council, composed exclusively of the finance ministers of the euro area. No veto or authority of national parliaments shall be provided against these ministers when acting as governors. In addition, they shall enjoy in this capacity a total immunity allowing them to escape any legal prosecution. Nevertheless, they shall freely dispose of the treasures of the State, which shall have irrevocable and unconditional access to their request.

It is also interesting to note that the starting budget of the ESM can be claimed from the Member States within only seven days, but it is not ceilinged and can therefore be increased unlimitedly on the sole decision of the Governing Council. These are irresponsible people who will be allowed to play impunely with the money of the taxpayers, that is, that of the workers.

Of course, we must play the card of solidarity with our European brothers. But why can’t this solidarity be democratic? No member or employee of this structure shall be elected by the population, nor be responsible before it. It is a comble! Even stronger: the MES can attack in court, but it cannot be prosecuted, not even by governments, administrations or courts! The lack of transparency also concerns inviolable documents that will only be made public if the Governing Council so wishes. This is anti-democracy in all its splendor.

That is why I consider this treaty to be an antidemocratic coup that could have dramatic consequences on the finances of our state. Indeed, without any political responsibility and without allowing any debate within this parliament, the implementation of this treaty could result in a rolling wave of austerity and rigour in our country, of which, of course, the only and only victims will be, as always, citizens whilst totally alien to the causes of the economic crisis and the crisis of the euro.

To be clear, the denial of the fiscal and budgetary powers of national parliaments, the denial of the basic principles of democracy, the inability to veto, the total judicial immunity, the opacity of documents, are all anti-democratic procedures that lead me, today, to vote against this treaty. Indeed, even though I believe that the European Union must develop, even though I believe in the latter, and I advocate for greater integration, I am convinced that European development will only be possible if Europe ceases to be a simple money pump, an instance that prioritizes only the economic aspects to move towards a social and democratic Europe, or the opposite of what is proposed to us this afternoon.

Finally, given the importance of the subject, I can only regret that a popular consultation has not been conducted, as has been requested by many citizens, by many apolitical groups. Indeed, I think that this popular consultation would have made it possible to ask the Belgian people for their opinion by informing them of the content of this text. In any case, it would have been better than voting between us without informing the public.

It is incredible that those who claim to be Democrats have preferred to keep the population in ignorance by playing with their purchasing power and quality of life.

Of course, I hope that those who play with the future of the Belgians by supporting this treaty will assume their responsibilities in case of problems. I know in advance that, unfortunately, this will not be the case. Indeed, if the political world is always quick to make bad decisions, it is always less willing to acknowledge its mistakes.

However, it is certain that, given the global situation, the problems will soon arise. It will then be the citizens who will pay the addition. I can tell you that the people are already thanking you for the decisions you make that are not in their interests.

I can only regret the fact that the MLD is the only French-speaking party that has the courage to oppose this new treaty, treaty of European dictators. I find it sad that all the French-speaking parties support this text.

It is not racism, it is not fascism to oppose this treaty; however, it is often what is heard on the banks of the PS. It is a bit easy! Meanwhile, thanks to the Socialist Party, thanks to the Reform Movement, thanks to the ecologists, thanks to the CDH, the citizens of this country will still have to pay money for reasons that do not concern them: they have made no mistake. On the other hand, the politicians, the banks made mistakes, played with the taxpayer’s money without having the slightest responsibility, as always, of course. It is so easy! But it is always the citizens who have to go to the cash.

That is enough! Many citizens share this view. If the traditional parties have decided not to listen to the citizens, be aware that there are still parties in Belgium who listen to them, who try to work for them, despite the criticism, despite the insults you can speak to their address over time.

In any case, the MLD will fight body and soul to save the interests of the citizens of this country. I hope that we will be able to work together to repair in the future the mistake you are going to make by voting for the approval of this treaty.

Mr. Speaker, colleagues, Mr. Deputy Prime Minister, I did not intend to speak at the end of the discussion, but I would like to remind you of the following. The date of today, June 14, has been cited to defend a number of theses. Well, eight days ago it was June 6, and on June 6, 1944, long ago, in Normandy, an armada of millions of people disembarked, who came to liberate Europe from the troubles and dramas of fascism.

Europe was murdered. Europe was humiliated. Europe no longer existed. There was damage, woe and misfortune everywhere. The community’s assistance through the Marshall Plan was meant to correct Europe. The Third Civil War in Europe had just ended, 1870, 1914, 1944. We found a hungry, exhausted and poor Europe. It was supported by the Marshall Plan. It was flat bombed, but it stood up, slowly but surely, divided as it was. Some Europeans who underwent that dramatic experience wished never to see that situation happen again.

Some, a small group, wanted to succeed in brothering the arch-enemies of history, France and Germany. Slowly but surely our destroyed continent rose out of the valley of unhealth. We were ashamed to be Europeans. We had scientifically murdered six million Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals. We had impoverished our country and our countryside.

Slowly but surely, six countries – one of them, Germany, was divided – made the beginning of a union. They tried to make a community with coal and steel, subject to the great tensions of the past. They tried to create a community with new technologies, such as nuclear energy. Slowly but surely they tried to break the boundaries of hatred, indifference and envy. Europe was political. It was much more than just the calculations of bankers or some technocrats. It was Europe that wanted to secure our continent, to never again see the war that had torn it three times, begin again.

They went from 6 to 9, from 9 to 12, to 15, to 25, to 27 and finally to 28 countries. By breaking down the borders to protect and enrich the population, Europe became a rich continent. Millions of others, from other continents, hunked to come here and live here, sometimes in illegal ways.

That Europe was built by removing borders, by securing consumers, by protecting the environment, by protecting itself to a certain extent, first internally, internationally, tolerantly toward others, by becoming the world’s largest trade power, by becoming the largest donor to the developing countries, to the poorest of our world. That Europe has built itself for the benefit of young generations, who, instead of fighting in other languages or opposing each other in other regimes, brother in international programs, visit their mutual universities, go here and there, can travel “passlessly” from one country to another, settle there and be free in their movements, their capital and their humanity.

It was a political Europe. The rest of Europe, occupied by another fascist movement, the communism of that time, was liberated step by step. We have gone too quickly. They have wanted to protect countries from falling back into dictatorships that we found disgusting. It was a political Europe. Step by step, prosperity, security and protection came from that cooperation. It cost us a lot of sovereignty. I am willing to pay that price for the delimitation of many of our illusions and illusions. Europe is being expanded step by step. It is about falling and getting up.

One dismantles the treaty with almost clinical cynicism, not because it is more or less opposed to some given, but because one fundamentally disagrees with what Europe is and what Europe will become: a continent of tolerance, of freedom and democracy, a continent that never wants to see the wars of the past again. That may be more than the reason why I will vote for that treaty.

Mr. De Croo, I was almost moved to tears. You are not building that Europe, but the Europe that Hitler was unable to realize: a European dictatorship.

Mr. De Croo, I congratulate you for this lyrical flight and especially for this ⁇ idyllic vision that you have presented. This is the ideal Europe. Basic Europe was perfect. Unfortunately, the Europe that you have built all together, all the traditional parties, united hand in hand, it is not this Europe, it is not a Europe of solidarity, it is not Europe that protects its citizens. On the contrary, it is Europe that, every day, impoverishes the European peoples a little more.

It is this Europe that you have created, a Europe that is an economic institution, a money pump, simply. This is very well the lessons on the struggle against Nazism, Fascism. It is obvious that Europe has brought security to our countries. I can even tell you that my uncle participated in the Normandy landing; I don’t know if those who sit on the socialist banks and who call me a fascist can have the same kind of character in their family! Today, it is not Europe that protects peoples against fascism. On the contrary, and we can see, in Greece, Europe as it currently functions is the ground for the rise of fascism and extremism! And that is what you have to fight against! You are doing the opposite!

Mr. De Croo, if Verhofstadt were present here, you would surely be given a kiss from the maid and a sofa ahead, and here in front on the banks in the first row. Fortunately he is not here.

And fortunately, most of the attendees are old enough to have a history lesson, a privilege that is unfortunately more and more deprived of today’s youth. History teaches us – and we know it too well – what the ideals of the founding fathers of Europe were. But the Europe of those founding fathers has been robbed by the European Union. They would no longer recognize and recognize their own spirit child, which is even worse.

June 6, 1944, landing in Normandy. That was 68 years ago. Meanwhile, Europe has spent 58 of those 68 years in peace, in prosperity, without a single euro. So let us draw the conclusions, the correct conclusions, and not regret, but finally return to the ideal of those European founding fathers.

I would like to thank the Honourable Members for their interventions. I listened diligently to them.

It is normal that especially the opposition here in the plenary session has taken the time to express its objections.

However, I do not want those who read the report of this discussion and may not have the time to study the extensive discussions in the committee, to have the impression that one would have forgotten in the Belgian Parliament that the European Union was and is a peace-building and prosperity-creating project, in which our country as a founding member has built up with great conviction. No one should be blind to the mistakes, to the missed opportunities and to the shortcomings. No project can be accomplished without crises or difficult times. For example, the democratic content of the European construction deserves our concern and our work, but not our caricatures. Our solidarity may be based on responsibility and respect for obligations, but this conditionality must never be an excuse for selfishness and national shrinkage which, as President Mitterrand recalled in the European Parliament, has actually been the cause of one of the most horrible wars on this continent.

Mijnheer Annemans has se daarnet promised. Hij spak over de dream van Monard, but bedoelde of course Jean Monnet. Jean Monnet said, “We do not coalition states, we unite men.”

Die europäische voortrekker hat nog iets anders gezegd, te weten: “Men accept change only in necessity. They see necessity only in the crisis.”

At this moment it is up to us, as the founding member of the European Union, to show what our values are. They are not uncritical. All members of parliament who will vote for later are not uncritical or beat and they do not think that nothing can be better. Those who make a no-vote based on cartoons, as far as I am concerned, have trouble hiding in their long discourse that their no-vote has ⁇ much to do with a basic position that unfortunately many people occupy, especially egoism.

Mr. Luykx, do you want to replicate?

Yes, Mr the President. I feel good, I’m almost alone here.

I would like to replicate at least one thing.

At first, I thought I misunderstood Mrs. Vienne. Mrs. Vienne, we do not carry out any procedural strike. However, we take into account the federal reality of this country, where the present treaty also has an impact on the states.

You said at some point that you are pro-European, not only in your words but also in your actions. Of course, I found such a sentence crashing. Your party, more specifically your chairman, only two weeks ago called the recommendations of the European Commission “old, liberal recipes of European law”. He ⁇ that the PS would oppose the revision of the index, against interventions in healthcare and against interventions in relation to the statutory retirement age. How can such a statement now be called pro-European?

The current government, led by a PS Prime Minister, has just declared that the recommendations of Europe to submit the draft budget in early October are not important and that we can ignore such recommendations.

The current government has only put the European Parliament out of play in the discussion about the Schengen area reform.

I find such an attitude in no way pro-European, neither in your words nor in your actions.

Secondly, colleagues, I was a little fascinated by colleague Annemans who in his presentation stood strongly out of the sea. You should know that the way in which the discussion was eventually concluded in the committee, however, seemed to be a bit of a trick. In that I must contribute to him. Indeed, it is a pity that we could not wait a little longer, namely until 19 June, to hear the Working Group on Mixed Conventions and to know their position on this treaty.

But, colleague Annemans, you are talking about Europe, about political dreams and political dreams of Europe. I read your book and you also start with that political dreams are important and should continue to exist. I think European and Flemish should be able to do that too. Annemans said, “All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.

Mr. Speaker, I will read the report in order to be able to properly analyze the deep twists of this poem.

My political dream of an independent Flanders and an orderly division of the Kingdom of Belgium is based on the assumption that we must stay with the reality, and that we must not pursue abstract affairs. It is for this reason that I want to rescue those who dream of a European united state from their dream. They have escaped from reality. To those who want to hold Belgium together and at the same time want to bring Europe together in the way they have held Belgium together, I say: “I am a realist, I stay with the reality.” Therefore, I nurture the dream of an independent Flanders and reject the European dream of those others.

Mr. Speaker, I have something troubling. I am bothered to be accused of being selfish. I just made a very short speech. Now I want to emphasize who are the egoists here.

Belgium is a very small country. As I said before, we have had to work until today to hand over our wealth to the government. From tomorrow we can work for ourselves. What we have already paid in the European context is enormous. Colleague Annemans said it too. We are per capita the biggest contributors to Europe!

Are we then selfish? The European crisis is a banking crisis, caused by, among other things, your pillar, your trade union, and the owners of the largest bank we had, Dexia. We, the “egoists”, have courageously bought that bank. We have put 10 billion euros on the table: once 4 billion euros and once 6 billion euros, and we are at risk of 54 billion euros to pay for the waste of that dissolved institution.

That is not yet enough. We have paid almost 7 billion euros to Greece. We have paid almost 1 billion euros to Portugal. Now we are talking about Spain.

We don’t get the euro from Europe. On the contrary, we still have to justify ourselves in Europe for the misconduct and the grey culture of our bankers, with a bank full of politicians. It was the only state bank we had, because its owner was the State. Or was it not so?

We don’t get anything from Europe. Spain has the same banks and those banks get 100 billion euros from Europe. And we provide a contribution of 3.8 billion euros. We’re putting back our neck for 4 billion euros.

And then the minister comes here to say that we are selfish. We have already thrown money into the North Sea. We have already thrown money into the Aegean Sea. And now we’re going to throw something into the Mediterranean Sea.

I only ask that there be control. I vote against because there is no control, because the EMS is a vessel without soil. I have heard a colleague say, we have no voting right if there is a capital increase later, we are too small. We are big enough to contribute, but we are too small to decide our fate.

That is the major disadvantage of this EMS. This fund is a vessel without soil. We are condemned to dance in the future to the pipes of the great countries in Europe. They will decide what amount to be given.

I would almost like to apologize to the minister who says we are selfish because we approach this matter critically. I am in favour of this fund, but not as it is currently composed. We give out a white cheque.