Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-13-Speech-1-066"
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"en.20000313.2.1-066"2
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".
Mr President, Prime Minister, just a few quick comments to close this debate, which has been lengthy but extremely important and constructive.
Firstly, we are not starting from scratch. Anybody who may think that we have been too optimistic in this debate must understand that we are not starting from scratch. Europe has the advantages of the single currency and the single market to build on. In Lisbon, we will build on these resources, and consolidate them in the areas in which there is a need, and there are many of them, for the single market is not the only subject which we want to discuss in Lisbon. It is not yet single because of the delays in public and private services; it is not single because of the delays in achieving transparency and in introducing the use of modern technologies to make the markets fully functional in terms of information technology and, therefore, in terms of efficiency. Now then, we have to increase productivity in these areas sufficiently to sustain economic growth without inflation. However, we must be careful. We may be breaking this debate on Lisbon down into constituent parts, but we have a clear objective constantly in mind: we have to create the economic and social conditions needed for sustained growth. We have already mentioned economic conditions – efficiency and productivity. We must also create the social conditions needed to prevent the disintegration of society due to income discrepancies, which is one of the greatest dangers. I stress this because it needs to be borne in mind: the income discrepancies in Europe have widened recently. This is a problem which will become irresolvable in the future, if it is not already. Therefore, our responsibility is both economic and social.
In Lisbon, we will have to take some practical decisions. With regard to this, I would just like to mention a specific point, given that a great many references have been made to the United States. In the United States, this new market, this innovation, this dissemination of innovation – and the great difference is that it is a telecommunications innovation which also extends knowledge to the peripheries – emphatically did not come about through private initiative. There was a great deal of public investment at Federal, State and local levels. These were huge investments, and they were in modern infrastructures. I warn you that here our direct, and I stress, direct commitment at public and the other different levels is to build telecommunications highways, the roads for these new vehicles to run on. The market, private individuals and companies will build the vehicles, but it is our responsibility to build the new highways. With regard to what Mr Guterres has said about Internet access in every school, on the network connecting all the peripheral areas, this is not an obligation which can be left exclusively to the market because, quite simply, the market does not operate like this and, on the other hand, without this we will not attain the new and requisite targets for production development. Our problem is therefore that of avoiding a crisis in peripheral economies, which does not mean centralisation, nor a centralised programme, but giving peripheral economies the same chances that we give centralised economies. This, therefore, is why the programme must be directed at schools; this is why we must take an entire year group and insist that in that year there is no-one who does not receive Internet training.
There is therefore a very clear strategy for Lisbon. Basically, in Lisbon, we need to revitalise employment and growth, confident in our ability to succeed, and we must therefore move towards this model which is based on stable balance. To return to today’s debate, I would like to pick up on an expression which was used by one of the MEPs, Mr Goebbels, who, if I am not mistaken, said that Europe is suffering from a ‘deficit of the future.’ The problem is simple. We cried on each other’s shoulders for such a long time, but during this time the seeds of what we had sown with such sacrifice in the early days of Europe were preparing to bear fruit. Now, let us please endeavour to make good the deficit of the future and give the coming generations a sense of direction, in the knowledge that we are working together, slowly but surely, to achieve something which will last. It is clear that, at this point, the three processes have to be combined. Unfortunately, our terminology is nightmarish, but let us genuinely group macroeconomic issues and labour and structural problems together, right now, and we will then be able to achieve the results we desire through very simple, specific measures. Remember the European company: we have not yet reached unanimity over the European company, but hundreds of thousands of companies are demanding it. It must be accomplished at all costs, because, quite simply, the idea of operating in fifteen different countries which, at this stage, are in any case metamorphosing into one single country, with different rules governing basic business principles, is not viable: we will not be able to sell it because it does not make sense.
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The same applies to the Community patent – for we will not be able to sell that either – to procurement rules and the capital market and to the beginnings of the coordination of social security, because there is no point in us dreaming up great expectations of mobility or developing such successful programmes as ERASMUS or SOCRATES to make people more mobile, if our social security rules do not then support this mobility.
You see, all the different pieces are coming together to give direction to Lisbon. We are able to give it credibility precisely because the Portuguese Presidency has teased out the threads of unification and woven these together to form a tapestry. We now have the resources, and I hope that in Lisbon we will be able to unite to put them into practice, for I feel there is a great need for this and that we may also achieve more than we expect."@en1
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