Portuguese MEP questions Brussels on the alleged pact with France to get around the deficit

  • ECO News
  • 7 November 2016

The MEP Paulo Rangel questioned the European Commission on the veracity of the alleged agreement with Paris that allowed the bending of the rules on deficit.

The urgent question sent by the leader of the Portuguese Social Democratic Party (PSD) delegation in the European Parliament comes as a consequence of the book published about the French President François Hollande, revealing the existence of a “pact” between the European Commission and the French authorities. Due to this pact, France was able to avoid sanctions from excessive deficit over the last few years, using “makeup” in the published public accounts.

In his question to the Community’s executive, Rangel points out to the fact that in the book Un president ne devrait pas dire ça… (‘A president shouldn’t say that…’), François Hollande “makes reference not only to this alleged privileged treatment the French state got from the European Commission, but also to the bilateral negotiation between the Commission and France”.

Rangel also questions, therefore, if “it is true France concluded an agreement – formal or informal, secret or not – that enabled the bending of the Euro Area rulings concerning deficit and debt, benefiting from an illegal and discriminatory treatment”.

The Member of the European Parliament also asks, if that agreement is to be confirmed, “who were the European and French people responsible for that practice and to what procedures of legal and political accountability will they be subject to”; the MEP also asked “what measures is the Commission taking to correct this anomalous situation and what compensations will the Commission give to States who were forced to strictly comply with the rules of the European law.”