Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-02-Speech-4-066"
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"en.20000302.4.4-066"2
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"I shall begin, first of all, by warmly congratulating Mr Katiforis on the audacity of his proposals! I shall continue by deploring the excessively cautious approach of the right wing in the European Parliament which, by adopting a whole raft of amendments, has robbed my colleague’s work of its substance!
This report, let me remind you, is based on the Commission’s annual economic report for 1999, the first of these to be published under the euro system, which, consequently, is more concerned with the single European economy than with a series of national economies. The European Parliament had the option to take this opportunity to put forward imaginative and ‘proactive’ proposals, according to the rapporteur’s own description, with a view to giving European Union economic activities a new orientation. One observation is unavoidable: Europe has unparalleled potential for economic and social progress which, for reasons that still partly escape us, remains largely unexploited, hence the highly interesting suggestions made in the initial report of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs to regenerate economic activity by setting ambitious goals (an employment rate of 75%, an upturn in growth, etc.) and by setting aside sufficient resources to achieve this.
The initial proposals suggested that the Council in particular should bring in measures with a view to ensuring full employment which would still be consistent with price stability and the budgetary balance of the entire economic cycle. It is not in fact a matter, as some would have us believe, of challenging the policy of stability we adopted some years ago.
Some measures, particularly on tax, must be adopted to encourage private and public investment. We must get the programme of Trans-European Networks, as proposed in 1994, back on track, we must initiate a major research and development programme in order to ensure that investments necessarily have an innovative content. Why do we think that investment should not be used as an instrument for managing demand but should rather be practised for its own sake?
We must encourage better management of working time and the dissemination of policies of good practice within Member States in order to increase levels of employability, particularly among the most disadvantaged sectors of the working population. Some measures such as retraining, in the form of lifelong training, seem particularly relevant. These must be an integral part of the on-going institutional transformation which must support the transition to a knowledge-based economy. A proposal of this type brings us back into line with the thinking adopted for the Special Summit on employment which is to take place in Lisbon in March.
All of these measures, which are too proactive in the eyes of some of those on the right, have, of course, been brushed aside. I must condemn this! An amendment referring to taxation on speculative capital transfers also suffered the same fate."@en1
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