Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-13-Speech-1-046"
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"en.20000313.2.1-046"2
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"Mr President, the agenda for the Lisbon Council, which is to be held on 23 and 24 Match, is liable to induce dizziness.
One sees references, albeit only in chapter headings, to the Europe of innovation and knowledge, structural reforms, competitiveness, the European social model, employment, social cohesion, macroeconomic policies and sustainable growth. It is not surprising, given all this, that the numerous contributions made by the presidency of the Commission and by the Member States tend, for the moment, to be spread too thin.
This exercise could end in one of two quite different ways – either enabling the vast exchange of stimulating ideas, which each party would then attempt to apply at national level, with the possibility of joint initiatives in the new field of electronic trade – and this would not, at the end of the day, be such a bad scenario – or with the Council setting its heart on parading results in terms of the transfer of skills to Europe, which would entail increased centralisation and bureaucracy, which is to say exactly the opposite of what is required.
Reading the preparatory documents gives rise to certain fears in this regard. These documents state that – please excuse the jargon, but it is not of my own making – there must be greater convergence between the Cologne process on the coordination of macroeconomic policies, the Cardiff process on structural reforms and the Luxembourg process on the coordination of employment policies, and a collateral enrichment of the content of the employment pact and of the multilateral monitoring of budgetary policies.
But how can we guarantee greater convergence of all these vastly different processes? The conclusion of the document issued by the presidency on 12 January holds the key. We must revise the broad guidelines of our economic policies – which at present only have the status of an annual recommendation from the Council to the Member States – with a view to amplifying their scope and above all, consolidating their status as a ‘framework document’. It would appear that here one should take the word ‘framework’ as having the dual meaning of ‘synthesis’ and ‘obligation’.
Mr President, are we not, with these blanket documents, going down the path of reinventing the broad strategic guidelines? One may well wonder, particularly after reading the French contribution, which crowns them with interventionism, proposing that a whole range of national policies be coordinated in Brussels, such as those on employment, social protection and SMEs, and accompanying them with a vast array of statistical indicators, for which monitoring will have to be arranged.
Centralised guidance of this nature would result in further infringements of subsidiarity, increased standardisation of details, and a more restrictive coordination imposed on countries whose circumstances differ, which is to say, eventually, in new inflexibilities which would exacerbate the inelasticity of the single currency.
In our opinion, the aim of the Lisbon Council should in fact be to iron out these inflexibilities, to promote flexibility and the ability to adjust, and to exchange positive national experiences with a view to fostering the creativity that can only flourish when peoples are given freedom of choice."@en1
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