The leader of the PS, António Costa, believes that a “permanent fund” to face new crises, a proposal he defended this Saturday in Berlin, should be discussed in the next European councils, gathering consensus from the partners.
“Surely it will not be next week, but in the next councils, the discussion on the economic governance of Europe. And one of the issues is the existence of this permanent fund”, said the general secretary of the PS in statements to journalists. at the end of the congress of the European Socialist Party (PES).
“I think there will be a consensus in that sense because history has shown how the succession of crises recommends that there be a permanent mechanism, and that we do not have to invent an ‘ad hoc’ mechanism to respond to each crisis, especially when the problems are very similar,” he added.
António Costa participated in the first panel of the “Leading Europe through change” conference, together with Pedro Sánchez, leader of the PSOE and President of the Spanish Government, Robert Abela, leader of the Labor Party and President of the Government of Malta, and Magdalena Andersson, leader of the Labor Party. Social Democratic Party and Prime Minister of Sweden.
During his speech, he said that Europe has faced “crises in the last 15 years, financial crises, climate crises, pandemic crises” and now the war in Ukraine. This means, he argued, that a “permanent and stable” mechanism is needed to deal with and resolve these crises.
“The technical form is very variable. It can be with contributions from the State, it can be with joint issuance of debt, as was the case with SURE [apoio para mitigar os riscos do desemprego numa emergência]they can be made as loans, as in the case of SURE, or as transfers, as in the case of PRR [Plano de Recuperação e Resiliência de Portugal]that is not the essential issue”, he assessed.
“This is a crisis that affects everyone equally, but the effects are very uneven. That is why we have to have a stabilization mechanism at the European level, if we want to preserve the internal market and have a ‘level playing field’. [‘situação de igualdade’] between everyone within this internal market”, maintained Costa at the end of the PSE congress.
The initiative, which lasted for two days and was attended today by around 300 PES delegates, took place a few meters from the East Side Gallery, an open-air art gallery on the longest remaining section of the Berlin Wall.
António Costa compared the current war in Ukraine to the Berlin Wall, stressing the need to tear it down in order to “rebuild peace”.
“It is the great ambition that all Europeans have, and that we have for the future of Europe, a Europe where we can return to live in peace, in prosperity, where everyone can have confidence and hope in the future. This war is another wall, a once erected, and it is that wall that we have to overcome to build peace,” he wished.
Source: TSF
