14. Stresses, therefore, that when Eurobonds are to be issued, their issuance should be limited to a debt ratio of 60% of GDP under joint and several liability as senior sovereign debt, and should be linked to incentives to reduce sovereign debt to that level; suggests that the overarching aim of Eurobonds should be to reduce sovereign debt and to avoid moral hazard and prevent speculation against the euro; notes that access to such Eurobonds would require agreement on, and implementation of, measurable programmes of debt reduction;

On the contrary, they serve the interests of the banks, which have knowingly kept toxic bonds subject to large-scale international speculation on their books, and the interests of large corporations which have found, in the common market, a haven for speculation and tax evasion.

- Mr President, the key strategy the EU Commission has for Europe up to 2020 is reliance on neoliberal capitalism and a market system – in other words, the exact same factors that have plunged the world into the current economic chaos and illustrated in the Commission’s and EU governments’ response to the financial crisis in Greece: a shameful capitulation to the speculation and profiteering by the sharks in the financial markets; demanding that the Greek working class, pensioners and poor should have their services and living standards savaged to feed the insatiable greed of these financial markets, which are not some kind of an all-po ...[+++]werful god, as media commentators would have us believe, but investment banks, hedge-fund operators, bond holders and the like – parasites seeking super profits by deliberately speculating to create financial instability and then exploiting that to bleed working people. Is this the Europe we want for 2020?

2. Believes that the international financial crisis, which has its epicentre in the US financial system and was triggered off by property speculation, is an expression of the growing crisis of a financial speculation that has little to with the real economy, as well as of the devaluation of workers' wages and the purchasing power of the poorest, together with forced recourse to bank loans both for buying property and for consumption; finds it unacceptable that the workers and the least-favoured strata should have to pay the costs of the present financial crisis, once again letting off the hook those who are in reality responsible for, and benefit from, speculative policies ...[+++]and the financing of the economy, in other words big business and finance;

16. Could the proposed Directive lead to bids financed in an unsound way (such as by junk bonds)?

- a requirement to commit bananas to the vessel before submitting the declaration of intent to import and to lodge a sufficiently high security. This measure is aimed at deterring speculation.