Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-13-Speech-1-027"
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"en.20000313.2.1-027"2
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"Madam President, today's debate is welcome, necessary and timely. We all recognise that the European Union, in spite of economic recovery, is still working well below par for too many people; specifically for 15 million of our fellow citizens the EU is simply not working at all. This is an affront to individual and collective dignity and it gives us at least 15 million reasons why we should carry on with the project that you have highlighted here today, Mr Prime Minister. I too would like to welcome the fact that you have come to this House to dialogue with us before you go to your summit meeting.
The potential is clear: if the European Union, today, in its Member States, were to attain the best practice already achieved by its existing states and by its competitors we would have 30 million more jobs, twice as many as are currently unemployed. That is a practical measure of the potential if we can get the policies and methods right. The task of Lisbon has been correctly identified by you, Prime Minister, and by President Prodi as no less than shifting European policy towards a new practice, towards a new paradigm.
We in the ELDR Group believe that the Union's job at this stage is to develop this new paradigm so that there is a sense of an enabling Europe: enabling our citizens to achieve their full potential. Through greater coherence in terms of bench-marking, sharing best practice and improving strategic cooperation and coordination, the EU can be an important factor in releasing a new economic dynamic. Too many of our European markets are still too fragmented. Not enough European small and medium-sized enterprises grow into world-beaters. There are too few entrepreneurs in Europe. There is too little enterprise in Europe. You have remarked yourself, Prime Minister, that there is too little risk capital available on European capital markets. We undertake too little research and development, individually as states and collectively as Europe. Where we do, too little of it is converted into market product and services.
The Lisbon challenge is to delineate policy and methods for redressing these deficiencies and to release this potential dynamic. This truly would be an enabling exercise. If we can give people jobs this will prove to be the greatest weapon in the fight against social exclusion.
The new paradigm must also necessarily be people-based, reflecting the concept of lifelong learning, investing in adaptability through education and training and investing in self-development and individual opportunity. Mr Barón Crespo has described it as a Social Democrat project. I am moved to describe it myself rather as an enlightened Liberal project.
Within the constraints of the budget and of sound macro-economic policy – I underline those as President Prodi has already done – strictly speaking our European social models offer a welfare safety net. But for too many of the excluded and the long-term unemployed, the young, women and other marginalised groups, passive welfare dependency is not enough. It is a trap. What we have to do is release this new dynamic at individual level by saying the resources are there, even within the framework of sound finance. But they are used in a passive way. They have to be reconverted into active models of welfare focused on encouraging all those people who can, to do, and those who cannot, to continue to be protected. We can best guarantee the fight against unemployment and encourage social cohesion in Europe through having an employment-rich economy and through having sustainable models of welfare.
Finally, on the knowledge society, it is very clear that we need to convert our thinking, not just at a technological but also at a social level. It is very clear that we need to convert old social spending methods into new economic and social opportunity. We need to shake off the policies and methods that have condemned a generation of Europeans to be second-best on the world stage. We can do that by enabling Europe and its peoples to achieve our full potential. If Lisbon can meet the targets spoken of here today, it will be an important step on that road to releasing the dynamic to which I have referred."@en1
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