The European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn announced "a stricter approach" towards Eurozone countries that do not respect the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact today at a hearing on measures being taken against Greece. The "repeat offenders" are to be monitored even more closely by Brussels.

Nicolaos Chountis, GUE/NGL coordinator on the European Parliament’s Special Committee on the Financial, Economic and Social crisis comments on the announcement: "Olli Rehn is a bad populist. Countries that enter into debt to save jobs and stimulate recovery by investment should not be punished. Greece is only one of 20 countries against which an excessive deficit procedure is underway. Obviously the Stability and Growth Pact is inappropriate for the realities of European economies."

Jürgen Klute, GUE/NGL coordinator on the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee concludes: "Whilst we still lack basic rules and regulations on financial markets, we are preventing the most vulnerable countries in the Eurozone from fighting against poverty and job cuts. The heightened surveillance of bad rules gets us nowhere. "

Brussels, 15 April 2010

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