Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-11-Speech-2-118"
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"en.20000411.5.2-118"2
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"So what is the strategy for making a success of this incredible economic transformation Lisbon is promising us? It is a strategy which is radically innovative. All those who have endeavoured to tackle the problem of the European economy so far have done so within the context of the old economy.
Guterres decided that the problem was practically insoluble in this context and, rather than having to contend with the deadlocks of the old economy, he decided to circumvent them altogether. It is what you might call a great inspirational strategy which proposes that Europe put all its effort into the new economy, into information technology and into telecommunications in the hope that, as this new economy develops, the old economy will take a new direction in its wake. The most basic example is employment. Europe currently has 16 million unemployed whom it cannot absorb. At the same time, there are 800 000 highly-skilled jobs in the new economy which cannot be filled due to a lack of skilled human resources. Some say these figures are set to reach 1.6 million next year. If Europe does not learn its electronic
lessons fast, these unfilled jobs will multiply and the economy will slump. And even if we do fill these 800 000 jobs, there will still be a further 15 million unemployed. We do not appear to have solved any problems whatsoever.
However, the new technologies can, with our support, lead to competitiveness and cost reductions in all sectors. And as all the other sectors become more productive, thanks to the impact of the new economy, they too will create more jobs. This is the simple yet great idea of Lisbon. The question is whether this idea will work in practice. And whether or not it will work in practice depends on whether or not we are capable of a new financial perspective in Europe.
All these years, Europe has been convinced that investing taxpayers’ money into the old-style economy was a waste of time. This is where all the zero deficits, stability plans and so forth come from. It is debatable just how much of ECOFIN’s die-hard approach was totally justified, but perhaps we are now in a position to leave this behind us. Lisbon may well have shown us how to leave this behind us because, if we are to attain its objectives, we need public investment in the new economy. We need to build information highways, on which private enterprises can of course then create and run their own vehicles. However, these highways can only be built by the Member States, by the public sector and by the European Union. Lisbon will be judged on this, i.e. on whether or not we are capable of integrating the public and private economies in an original and enterprising manner."@en1
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