Senior MEP calls for 'much more' to help recession-hit EU economies

The EU’s so-called economic recovery plan has been dismissed as insufficient to prevent a recession “turning into mass unemployment".

The much-hyped €200bn “fund” was agreed by EU leaders last month and is designed to refloat many of the EU’s flagging economies.

But critics point out that it is, in GDP terms, only a quarter of what the US is already planning and a small fraction of what president-elect Barrack Obama may invest.

Now senior Danish MEP Poul Nyrup Rasmussen has added to criticism of the initiative by saying it is insufficient.

Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister, said, “A lot more still needs to be done if we are to going to prevent recession turning into mass unemployment.

“That’s what you get with a conservative majority in Europe. Instead, we see the commission rather overselling the recovery plan which risks creating disappointment and eventually more disillusionment.

"The fact is the plan is not enough to maintain employment levels.”

Rasmussen, president of the Party of European Socialists (PES) said that of the 27 leaders in the EU, only UK premier Gordon Brown and his Spanish counterpart José Luis Zapatero, “are acting decisively enough.”

“How is Europe going to achieve a 1.5 percent of GDP stimulus package when of the big EU economies only Gordon Brown’s Labour and the Socialists under Zapatero in Spain are investing more than 1 per cent of GDP in growth?

“There is no new stimulus package from conservative-led Germany, who prefer instead to make unduly harsh – and in my opinion inappropriate – criticisms of Gordon Brown for what I and most PES party leaders consider to be a very good stimulus package."

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