The Stability and Growth Pact must be respected through “a better use of the flexibility already present in the rules and proposals to encourage structural reforms with additional financial incentives and targeted fiscal capacities for the Eurozone”. This is Jean Claude Juncker's political platform, according to the anticipations of his speech, during which he also indicated that the public and private investment plan to support economic growth must be ready by mid-February.
"It is an ambitious program and I ask for Parliament's support," he said in his speech at the plenary session in Strasbourg. The existing structural funds, the tools available or which can be developed for infrastructure projects, coordinated interventions can be used "in a targeted way". Juncker did not provide more precise indications. The EU had already decided a year and a half ago to set up an investment plan capable of mobilizing up to 180 billion in three years through the EIB's capital increase of ten billion. The question is whether the 300 billion that Juncker talks about are additional or include them.
The new president of the European Commission also questioned the Troika, "arguing that "it lacks democracy, it does not have a parliamentary dimension, it must be reoriented with more democracy, more politics, more role for parliament".
