Site du Premier ministre - Portail du Gouvernement

Statements made by M. Nicolas Sarkozy, president of the Republic during his joint press conference with M. Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg Prime minister and minister of Finance - excerpts.

I’d like to thank Jean-Claude Juncker, who has a lot of experience and has chaired this session outstandingly.
I’d like to say that it’s important for the Eurogroup because my démarche is a profoundly European one: a president, a head of State, setting out to his Eurogroup partners the economic policy his country is conducting.
I put a lot of emphasis on the reforms France was going to implement, reforms which are in line with the Lisbon Agenda. The Commission, like the European institutions, have been waiting for a very long time for France to implement them.
I think I can say - and I think Jean-Claude will agree - that this elicited fairly general satisfaction on the part of all the finance ministers, who took the view that we were going to implement these reforms straightaway and not later. From this point of view, I believe it was perceived as good news.
Secondly, I pointed out that I believed in a pact, in the necessity for this pact and that I wanted, of course, to subscribe to its rationale. The aim isn’t to cut the deficit to please the Commission. It’s to cut the deficit because it’s better to have a country which isn’t in debt than one which is.
Thirdly, I made a number of commitments. To achieve a 2.4% deficit in 2007, instead of 2.5%. To have one below 2.4% in 2008. I said I wasn’t sure of being able to achieve 1.8%. Moreover, those who made that commitment at the time weren’t any surer of being able to do it.
Fourthly, I pointed out that the psychological confidence threshold we’re creating enabled us to have higher growth, so we’d be able to meet the 2010 deadline. We’ll do our utmost to do this, but I was duty-bound to be realistic, honest, and transparent. If we don’t manage it, then I’ll ask to meet it in 2012. 2012 isn’t an implausible date since it’s one which has been set by all the finance ministers. That’s precisely what our discussion was about.
(...) We need a bit of time for the reforms to generate savings. I can’t be asked for immediate results with reforms carried out immediately, and it’s this pragmatism I asked for in order to keep to the spirit of the Stability Pact.
France is embarking on an unprecedented process of reforms. I had in fact set them out to President Barroso just before the meeting with Jean-Claude. I’m not asking for delays to put off an effort to control public finances, I’m simply asking for an intelligent and dynamic application of the Stability Pact because France is going to implement the reforms Europe has so long been expecting from her.
I believe it was very important to come and talk to the Euro Area finance ministers about this. (...)