Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-04-04-Speech-3-010"
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"Madam President, Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen, when I last addressed this House, it was to present to you the first Commission "Spring Report" to the European Council. As you will remember, our report takes stock of Europe's progress in implementing the Economic and Social Agenda agreed upon at Lisbon. The Stockholm Summit was the first summit specifically dedicated to assessing our progress and to setting the priorities for the next 12 months. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Swedish Prime Minister, Mr Persson, for his firm, calm, enthusiastic chairmanship and organisation of our work at Stockholm. I also greatly appreciated the opportunity he gave us to meet President Putin and to discuss with him the European Union's partnership with Russia. This was a very encouraging meeting and confirmed Russia's strategic role. Indeed, President Putin assured us that Russia and the European Union share common values.
Secondly, the Galileo programme. At Stockholm, I outlined the state of play to the European Council, including the fresh undertaking by the private sector to provide immediate funding of EUR 200 million. This means that the Member States no longer have any reason to hesitate. In fact, a clear unanimous political commitment has been made by the Heads of State or Government to implementing this project rapidly. I would also like to take this opportunity to reiterate that beating about the bush is no longer acceptable: a project of such strategic importance for all European citizens for the next 20 years can no longer be held up by squabbles over minor details. Decisions made by Prime Ministers should be implemented by the departmental ministers, who must oversee the practical implementation of projects.
Thirdly, the financial markets. For some time, the Commission has been arguing for an integrated Europe-wide financial market. We need a regulatory system which makes it possible for us to keep pace with this rapidly changing market. I therefore welcome the fact that the Commission has emphasised the importance of this sector and its enormous potential for both job creation and reducing costs.
As recommended, a European Securities Committee will be set up, chaired by the Commission. This body will act as a regulatory committee and assist the Commission in decisions regarding the measures to be adopted to implement practically the legislative acts agreed upon between the Council and Parliament in codecision. Thus, together, we will be able to push forward to create an integrated securities market, one of the major pieces missing from our internal market. The Commission will therefore be tabling major proposals in this field before the summer and I call upon this House to act on them without delay. I believe the debate on this should be pursued within the codecision procedure by qualified majority voting.
Fourthly, the Community patent. Progress in this field has run up against a number of national concerns ranging from language issues to loss of revenue for the Member States' national patent offices. I have to say that these positions taken up by the Member States seem to run counter to the interests of their own economic operators, who are constantly calling for us to produce a simple, clear, competitively priced Community patent. I sincerely hope that this situation can be resolved. Parliament and the Council must take swift, tangible steps to convert the commitments made in Lisbon into action.
Fifthly, the single European sky. As we all know, a whole series of major proposals is currently blocked until Spain and the United Kingdom come to a bilateral agreement on Gibraltar. For its part, the Commission will do all it can to help resolve this problem quickly. Moreover, the two Member States have agreed to resume discussions on the matter.
Sixthly, postal services. Postal services are to be deregulated by the end of 2001, and the liberalisation of the energy markets will continue on the basis of the extremely clear, precise proposals we have already tabled.
With regard to the demographic challenge, the European Council recognised the importance of ensuring the long-term sustainability of public finances, social services, health care and pensions. In any case, sustainability issues will have to be tackled within the framework of a more general European strategy for sustainable development, which will be one of the main focuses of the Gothenburg Summit in June. Moreover, in future, the Commission will incorporate sustainable development into its annual spring report.
As of next year's spring summit – and this is a very important point – in fact, the Commission will prepare just one report for each Spring Council, making the preparatory work clearer and more transparent. In this way, we will, at last, be able to concentrate on political factors rather than technical details. It will also make it easier for the public to understand what is at stake.
Ladies and gentlemen, Stockholm has provided us with a very good basis for action over the next 12 months. I have said this before and I shall say it again: effective action by the European Union is the only way to win public support for the European project. The surest way to lose that support is to increase the number of unfulfilled promises. We have got to close the gap between rhetoric and reality in Europe. It is all very well and very necessary to agree on targets, to set up task forces and to develop indicators and strategic visions, but what matters is action: action to create jobs and disseminate new skills, action to recruit and train teachers, action in national parliaments to cut red tape, action by governments and industry to invest in people.
We, in turn, made it clear that we want to help Russia to fully integrate into our community of values; we want to identify the most appropriate means of cooperation, not only on the economy, the environment and energy, but on defence, security and the safeguarding of democratic rights as well. In this connection, while we welcomed the announcement of another reform programme yesterday, we cannot hide our concern at the way, at the same time, the government is gradually taking control of the television system. As Prime Minister Persson said, the discussions focused primarily on economic reforms in Russia, but the situation in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia received close attention as well. As expected, the European Council assured President Trajkovski of its full support for the territorial integrity of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia but, at the same time, the Union called upon President Trajkovski to take the grievances of the Albanian minority in his country into consideration. In any case, it would be a mistake to allow the current crisis in the FYROM to deflect us from our objective of helping the country integrate more closely with the European Union.
The citizens want a Europe that delivers the goods, and the Commission will continue to do so zealously and with total commitment. However, it is up to all of us, to all the institutions and especially this House, to the Member States and the social partners, to ensure that, in the wake of Stockholm, our words are translated into action.
Indeed, we are about to pursue that objective further by signing the first Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. I would like to emphasise that the European Union's credibility depends largely on our ability not just to set political and strategic objectives but also to take swift, effective action on the ground. At the same time, we must strive to bring about long-term stability in the Balkan region, and this means using all the tools available to us to integrate, little by little, the entire region into the European Union. Milosevic's departure from the scene is an important step forwards in this direction, bringing years of war and hatred to an end.
I would now like to move on to the debate on the Economic and Social Agenda taking place in the European Council. I agree with Prime Minister Persson when he says that the mood prevailing among the Heads of State or Government at Stockholm was one of rational optimism. A year ago, at Lisbon, we were still suffering from a sort of inferiority complex before the strength of the US economy.
Now things have changed and we can see that Europe is in a position of strength in three respects. Firstly, the modernisation of our economy is now underway, secondly, we have a Social Agenda aimed at rejigging the European Social Model while preserving its character, and thirdly, we are making every endeavour to achieve sustainable development which will include the environmental dimension.
The position recently adopted by the United States on the environment is worrying. Our concern is reflected in a joint letter from Prime Minister Persson and myself to President Bush. In any event, Europe must continue to act consistently and must take the lead on this highly important issue.
A month ago, before this House, I stressed the problems of the distribution of labour and social exclusion. It is therefore necessary to step up our efforts to modernise the European Social Model within the framework of the Agenda adopted at Nice.
In this regard, I must stress once again the need to adopt clearer strategies to tackle the issue of our ageing society. It is with precisely this in mind that the Commission announced its undertaking to issue a Communication on the quality and sustainability of pensions in the light of demographic change. On the basis of these premises, the Commission urged the European Council to commit the Member States to taking action at the very least in six key sectors in which fresh impetus is needed.
Firstly, we still need to improve skills and training in information technology. Last Wednesday, the Commission adopted the
Learning Action Plan, which lays down specific measures on teacher training and partnerships between educational establishments, companies and industries."@en1
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