Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament: Bulgaria was less severely hit by the crisis compared to other countries

- Mr. Schulz, what would you do to make the voice of the European Parliament heard? For example, EP asked all member states to lift labor market barriers to Bulgarians and Romanians in December, but only Italy has done so since then.
- The European Parliament gained substantial new powers under the Lisbon Treaty, which took effect in December, 2009. In the European Union's decision-making, the parliament now stands on an equal footing with the government in a majority of areas. So the parliament's voice is heard well and its position respected by other EU institutions -- the executive European Commission and the Council, or the mentioned governments. Many citizens are not aware of how powerful the European Parliament is. Changing people's perceptions about the parliament is a major task for me as its president.

The parliament has already has several successes in using its new powers. In negotiations last year with the governments, we improved substantially the so-called 6-pack, or a major legislative package aimed at fighting the economic crisis. The parliament also forced the governments to renegotiate an agreement with the United States on sharing sensitive banking data, the so-called SWIFT agreement. Thanks to the parliament's position, the citizens' personal data are protected better.

But of course there are areas in which the parliament does not have any decisive say. Border controls and movement of workers are among them. Here, we can only put pressure on governments to do what we consider the right thing. For example, we passed a resolution calling on EU members to admit Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen free travel area.

The issue of free movement of labour is sensitive in many EU member states, especially during the crisis, which pushes up unemployment in many countries. But once the 7-year transitional period is over in 2014, Bulgarian and Romanian workers would be allowed to work in the whole EU without the work permit.

- In one of your first speeches as EP President you said that the Parliament must be more involved in decisions on resolving the euro crisis. What would you do to achieve this?
- The European Parliament is already deeply involved in fighting the crisis. As I said, we did improve the 6-pack legislation by strengthening preventive measures against governments' borrowing too much. We passed, and often improved, anti-crisis laws on banking bonuses, new financial supervising bodies, trade in derivative instruments, on hedge funds, late payments and on many other issues.

But when I spoke about the parliament's bigger involvement I meant that I will resist the trend of weakening EU institutions and shifting power to national governments: Some governments are doing exactly that under the pretext of fighting the crisis, or under the pretext that decisions concern only 17 members of the euro zone and not all 27 EU members. But the European Parliament is the legislature for the euro zone -- that is what the treaty says.

I am worried by this trend. It if continues, we risk returning to the 19th-century power politics where secretive deals are struck in backrooms of Berlin, Paris or Brussels.

Defending the EU and its powers is perhaps my biggest task as the president of the European Parliament. I will fight for the parliament's right to hold other institutions and governments accountable. Not just to increase the parliament's power for the power's sake, but in order for the EU to serve its citizens better. I already had some successes. Thanks to my intervention, the president of the European Parliament will be invited to the planned, regular summit of euro zone countries.

Under my leadership the parliament will do all it can to defend what is know in Brussels as the community method of decision-making. It means strong involvement of the parliament and the European Commission, this means reconciling the interests of smaller and bigger countries, basing decisions on the principles of solidarity and democracy and not deferring to the more powerful, this means placing common good above interests of the most powerful.

Let's remember that together will can all win, but separately will be all lose.

- You said you were against the principle of a multi-speed Europe. Do you think that such a division can be avoided after Great Britain and the Czech Republic refused to join the EU fiscal treaty?
- There are already areas in the EU where member states move with different speeds. Some countries do not belong the Schengen area and some are exempt from the obligation to adopt the euro currency one day. But these differences are not fundamental and they do threaten the unity of the EU.

I am firmly against creating new deep divisions in the EU by, for example, turning the euro zone into some kind of exclusive club. I welcome the decision to allow non-euro countries to participate in most euro zone summits.

I regret that Britain and the Czech Republic decided not to join the fiscal compact. I hope they will join it in the future. I believe that this agreement, which is now being negotiated as an intergovernmental treaty outside the EU framework, will be incorporated in the future into EU laws.

- Bulgaria is often held up as an example in terms of fiscal discipline, but at the same time is the poorest member state in the EU. You said earlier that austerity measures must be accompanied by investment in growth and jobs. Do you think that an European growth initiative could become reality soon?
Bulgaria's fiscal situation is indeed good, compared with many other European countries. Your governments have been conducting prudent financial policies, which deserves praise. As a result, Bulgaria has been hit much less than many other countries by the global financial crisis. Some of your neighbours have been forced to seek financial aid from the EU and the International Monetary Fund, but not Bulgaria.

Economically, Bulgaria is still paying the price for an especially harsh brand of communism before 1989 and, even more so, for a very late start of economic reforms after the fall of the old regime. But I am optimistic about your future.

As for the austerity measures, I believe they do not suffice to fix the sovereign debt crisis in several euro zone countries. Austerity will fail to reassure investors and citizens, because without economic growth, public debt will not fall to sustainable levels. We also need to give people hope economically, show that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

I therefore support the European growth initiative. I welcome a recent letter signed by prime ministers of 12 EU countries that call for new, bold pro-growth measures. While trying reduce debt levels, we also need to invest in the future, in innovation, in research and in infrastructure.

- You spoke in favor of creating an European rating agency. Will such an agency calm the markets and can it be more objective than the US rating agencies?
The European and global economy will benefit if there is more competition on the market that is now dominated by three credit rating agencies -- Standard and Poors, Moody's and Fitch. Those agencies deserve only limited trust after they had made so many mistakes in assigning ratings, which partly led to the global financial crisis in 2008. For example, they gave the best, triple-A ratings to many financial instruments backed by sub-prime mortgages, which in the end fell to a junk status.

In recent months, those rating agencies contributed to the worsening of the sovereign debt crisis in the euro zone. Their negative verdicts on some countries worked like a self-fulfilling prophecy: the credit rating downgrade says that a country may have more problems that expected so far with repaying its debt, and indeed, this becomes the case, but not because of any objective, fundamental reasons, but because of this very credit rating downgrade.

I therefore support the creation of an independent European credit rating agency.

- We have seen a massive campaign against ACTA in the last few weeks. Do you think that the European parliament should ratify the controversial agreement, especially after the EP's rapporteur for ACTA resigned?
- As the European Parliament's president, I cannot prejudge the assembly's decision. In March, we start hearings on ACTA and we will have a final vote on it in June or July. I have heard criticism in the parliament from those who say ACTA may curb individual freedoms. But there are also the advocates, who say the current rules are too lax and are blocking the development of some major industries, such as music or film.

- You were leader of one of the largest political group in the European Parliament. Is it hard to achieve a compromise between different groups? What would you do to encourage cooperation within the EP?
- The European Parliament is different from national parliament in that there is no official ruling majority that almost automatically supports decisions of the executive branch. In that respect, it is often more difficult to achieve a compromise. But that allows us to look profoundly into real merits of a given legislation, not back it blindly because it has support of some powerful governments.

As a result we have vivid debates, sometimes quarrels even, about some pieces of legislation, but we reach a good compromise in the end.

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