Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-13-Speech-1-024"
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"en.20000313.2.1-024"2
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"Madam President, President-in-Office of the Council, Prime Minister Guterres, President of the Commission, Mr Prodi, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party and European Democrats, I have to say that we are mainly in agreement with those ideas which Mr Guterres and Mr Prodi have put forward here. On behalf of my group, I would like to congratulate Portugal, as the country holding the presidency, on organising the European Council in Lisbon, and we obviously wish you every success in your endeavours.
I would like to raise a few issues from our perspective. As far as the prosperity of the citizens of the Union is concerned the most important task is to try to maintain sustainable economic growth in the area, all the time seeing to it that there is an increase in regional equality with respect to prosperity and that more and more people are able to earn a satisfactory income from their work without having to resort to social benefits. The processes which have been put in place, by common agreement, to improve levels of employment, boost economic renewal and increase social cohesion within the territory of the Union are extremely important. It is only right that the meeting in Lisbon at the end of the month should stop to consider where we are exactly.
Despite the diverse nature of these processes, they must have one common purpose: to improve people’s quality of life in the Union. We do not need new organisations, new working parties or new fora to achieve this objective, however. The tools are surely known to all. Often, however, national considerations, and sometimes ideological resistance also, mean that these tools do not get used. The most important task now is to remove the barriers to creating a real European home market as quickly as possible, instead of continuing to manoeuvre, in many sectors, within a framework of fifteen separate home markets.
When the idea of the single market was launched with some vigour in the 1980s, we could still move towards our destination at the speed of a local steam locomotive, figuratively speaking. Now, with the rapid advent of electronic commerce, and with the speed at which we process and utilise transfers of data reaching new levels, we need to move at Mika Häkkinen Formula 1 speed at the very least. We must, however, be sure that the engine does not give out before the decision makers get to the finishing line. How can we imagine being able to create the world’s most competitive economic area unless we venture to free up competition within the area? The opening up of competition that has already been agreed for the telecommunications industry, as with the energy sector also, will create new, much-needed jobs and bring down prices for both industry and consumers. Similarly, removing restrictions for small and middle-sized industries – whether they have to do with complex bureaucratic procedures, the acquisition of venture capital or questions of taxation – is a vital step on the path to improved competitiveness and prosperity. Global competitiveness also includes the notion of a reasonable level of tax harmonisation and the modernisation of our social system so that at least the countries in the Union with high rates of taxation can reduce those rates, which restrict employment.
A basis for all this is created through education and training, and research, however. It is quite right to strive to create an information infrastructure quickly, which private individuals, schools and businesses can all as easily be a part of at reasonable or even no expense. We have to consider in particular the future creation and maintenance of resources in promising sectors in terms of employment. These are obviously information technology, electronic commerce, tourism, and, for example, services for the elderly, as our populations are undeniably ageing all the time. There are two issues that must be emphasised both by us and the Commission and the Council, and we must always draw attention to them. These tasks are still mainly the responsibility of the Member States – whether it is the issue of education and training, and research, increased competition or removing barriers to entrepreneurship. Coordination is natural in many sectors – within the framework of the tasks of the Union also – to avoid overlapping, but healthy, honest competition is still more important than coordination, including in many non-commercial sectors. Benchmarking and best practice, which the Commission recommends, calls for a large measure of Europe-wide transparency in those fields where industrial secrecy does not apply.
The Group of the European People’s Party and European Democrats would like to emphasise that its ambition is to develop a social, or, as they say these days, an eco-social market economy, which takes account of the welfare of all sections of society, as well as the environment. In the achievement of our goal we wish to stress the importance of the European model of society, and, at the same time, the notion that it cannot be a rigid, stagnant system, one based on advantages gained in society, but it must be one that develops as society changes. The modernisation of the European social model and its increased effectiveness are as important for our competitiveness as the corresponding modernisation of the economy. Work must be the most sensible way of improving the welfare of families, but if it really is not possible, we have in place society’s safety net to prevent exclusion.
A certain change in working methods is in danger of becoming a social problem for the positive development of human relations: telecommunications, the Internet, the terminals at which we work, and television, which already seems like a venerable, ancient medium, are threatening to give the relationship between man and machine a key role in society. The most important issue, however, is developing mature interpersonal relationships in the family, at work, in society and in international relations. As the importance of education is being stressed we have to make our youth aware of that early on in their development.
The Commission refers, appropriately in my opinion, to deficits that hinder the growth of employment in the Union. We might mention the skills deficit as one example. In a Union that has fifteen million unemployed there is now a shortage of labour to the tune of around one million workers in industries that are suffering from a skills deficit. Some are suggesting importing a trained elite
into the Union area. I would ask whether this would be fair to countries less developed than ours, as this would create a brain drain for them. The UN, on the other hand, has referred to the fact that in a few years’ time there will be a shortfall of 40 million workers as a result of demographic change. It will be difficult to conduct a sober policy, one that produces results only very slowly, which must be implemented here and now, if we are presenting the citizens of Europe with such a picture of the future as this, while they themselves fear for their jobs."@en1
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