The Czech Prime Minister and the President of the European Council, Mirek Topolánek, in the European Parliament

Financial crisis and informal EU summit addressed by Topolánek in Brussels.

The Czech Prime Minister and the President of the European Council, Mirek Topolánek, and the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, described the preparations for and the goals of the informal summit that will address the implementation of the “Recovery Plan” to the MPs from across Europe who joined the MEPs in the European Parliament. The summit was convened by the Czech Presidency and will be held on 1 March.

“First and foremost, the situation on the interbank market must be stabilised. I fully support the conclusions of the Ecofin Council meeting of 10 February where the Finance Ministers defined two major tasks: firstly, to deal with the banks’ impaired assets that keep causing new problems, and secondly, to ensure that banks start lending again, both to businesses and households”, stated Mirek Topolánek, pointing out that space and conditions must be created for banks to lend to businesses that are healthy and that have contracts to fulfill and products to manufacture; however, businesses cannot be forced into artificially maintaining unprofitable production.

The President of the European Commission shared the Czech Prime Minister’s view that protectionism may damage the Union in two ways: by disrupting the most powerful tool in the combat against the crisis, i.e. the free market, and by disrupting mutual solidarity. “History shows us that protectionism only deepens economic crises; therefore, we must defeat it”, stated José Manuel Barroso, adding that the EU must unite and thus coordinate its actions - both at the level of the Member States and at the level of joint institutions - if it wants to suggest global solutions to the economic crisis.

In conclusion, the Czech Prime Minister and the President of the European Council, replying to the contributions made by the attendants of the joint parliamentary meeting, called upon the MPs to avoid pre-election populism that may become the greatest risk to future development. “It is impossible to unashamedly tell people that they will be immediately better off than before the crisis … to destroy the European project with our distrust”, said Mirek Topolánek.

You can read the whole speech of Mirek Topolánek here.

Contact:

Jiří František Potužník, Spokesman of the Prime Minister for the Czech EU Presidency
Tel.: +420 224 002 497, GSM: +420 725 818 435
E-mail: [email protected]