At the European Parliament, EPP shuts the doors to flexibility: “We cannot weaken the Stability Pact”

No flexibility. Rules are rules and shall be respected by everyone, Italy included. The EPP shut the doors to the Italian Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, who will face the European Parliament tomorrow, with the presentation of the program of the Italian Semester of European Presidency. The Head of the EPP Group at the Parliament, Manfred Weber, is going to welcome the Italian PM in a press conference held at the sides of the first vote for the election of the European Parliament President. During the press conference he also spoke about the ‘reforms issue’.

“We do not want to weaken the Stability and Growth Pact,” said Weber. “This is our red line: lessons offered by the crisis must be learnt.” Over the years, underlined the Head of the EPP Group, “Greece, Ireland and Portugal had to make enormous sacrifices to fight the crisis,” and other Member States cannot be exonerated. “Rules are rules and shall be respected not only by small Member States, they apply to everyone, even to G-7 countries such as Italy. We cannot review rules for these countries.”

After Italy, it was France’s turn: “France has been promising reforms in exchange for flexibility, but we are still waiting for those reforms,” said Weber.