Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-20-Speech-3-023"
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"en.20020320.5.3-023"2
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".
Thank you very much, Mr President, ladies and gentlemen.
Furthermore, I hope, and feel that, there are undoubtedly different ways in a democracy to express needs, demands, aspirations and objectives. There is one I especially believe in, and that is the one which derives and bestows the democratic legitimacy of its representatives by means of the ballot box. I would like to say sincerely, and with total respect for demonstrations of all types, that majorities and minorities in a democracy are decided on in elections, by the citizens who vote, and the hundreds of thousands of citizens who took to the streets in Barcelona are as worthy of respect as the millions and millions of European citizens represented by their legitimate representatives in the European Council, who have not taken to the streets anywhere and who have attentively followed the debates in Barcelona and peacefully wish Europe to prosper and continue to make progress with the process of reform which has been evident in Barcelona.
Therefore, the citizens will determine through the ballot box whether or not there will be new majorities, which is something I would hope everybody knows and accepts.
I believe that one of the fundamental characteristics of Barcelona, ladies and gentlemen, is that we have moved closer to the spirit of the citizens and when we talk about political elements, about the decisions of the Barcelona Council, we must take account of the fact that all of them affect the citizen directly. When we talk about transport, energy or employment, or when we talk about savings and investments or research, or when we talk about education, we are always talking about the citizens.
On the subject of full employment, can there be any greater social ambition than full employment? I can say quite frankly that I would prefer to have the satisfaction of full employment and twenty million jobs in Europe than full subsidisation. I will do whatever I can to take account of achieving full employment in the creation of policies in all the European countries and in the European Union. What can we do to create full employment? There are issues which are clearly fundamental: one is maintaining the correct approach decided on at the Lisbon European Council, which is the strategy of reforms, of openness, of liberalisation, and we are clearly adding the objective of sustainable development.
But there are issues which we must not forget, especially at times of recovery; stability and stability policies do not need to be modified, in my opinion. They need to be ratified because they are the essential basis for having healthy economies and allowing stronger and faster economic recovery in our countries.
Reasonable budgetary stability requires low interest rates everywhere, reasonably low inflation rates and greater possibilities for growth and consequently employment. But if we send the message that reaching a 3% deficit is no problem, by the same token it could be assumed that reaching 5% is no problem. I believe that it is a problem and if growth opportunities are missed, we will miss employment opportunities and opportunities for greater prosperity for companies and for families.
The same is true in the case of liberalisation policies, which I believe means offering opportunities, as far as possible, both to companies and to domestic consumers. To replace a public monopoly with a private one is not liberalisation. It is the opposite of liberalisation. The main problem is not whether a company is public or private, but whether it is a monopoly, and liberalisation is just the policy to put an end to monopolies, whether the result is private, public or a combination of the two side by side.
And what we have to do in Europe is firstly to prevent monopolies, and therefore to liberalise, with all its consequences, and this would create better services at lower prices, and at the same time promote electrical interconnections, because there clearly may be markets with monopolistic tendencies, which hinder competition and are poorly connected electrically.
Spain, which some of you have given as an example, has 3% electrical interconnection. What has been agreed? To achieve 10%. What does that mean? It means an extraordinary change from the point of view of energy. That, together with liberalisation and competition, is an objective benefit which I hope will reach all the citizens of Europe as soon as possible. It will reach 70% of the market in 2004 and I hope it will reach 100% in accordance with the decision we take before the European Council in the spring, which is exactly what we agreed in Barcelona.
I would like to thank the various spokespersons for their comments and contributions to the debate on the conclusions of the Barcelona European Council.
Finally, I would like to say that from the point of view of the significance of the process of balance, the commitment to balance between the three pillars of the Lisbon strategy, economic growth and reforms, employment and sustainable development, I believe we can be reasonably satisfied.
Some issues have been raised in relation to Galileo and the Middle East. I fully support the statement on the Middle East. Draft declarations are being presented for debate by the Heads of State and Government, and those drafts are subject to corrections on one, two or seven points, about which I clearly cannot go into more detail. I believe that a good statement has been made on the Middle East. It is a statement which has had, and is having, an effect in relation to the current situation of the region and we hope to be able to continue working in the immediate future to improve the situation.
Ladies and gentlemen, from an institutional point of view, I would simply reiterate the position I explained in this House in January. I would like to point out that there is already a meeting scheduled for 5 April to deal with the European Parliament’s access to confidential documents, on a temporary basis, and the objectives of interinstitutional cooperation for better regulation which will be attended by Spanish Secretaries of State, the Secretary-General of Parliament, the Secretary-General of the Commission and the Secretaries-General of the political groups in the European Parliament. It is scheduled for 5 April and therefore, in accordance with what was established with the President of the European Parliament and the President of the Commission, I believe that we can also make progress with the improvement of the institutional relationship that will clearly come to fruition when this work has been concluded.
I would like once again to thank the Commission for the work and initiative it has carried out, and the European Parliament for its encouragement and understanding. Thank you very much, Mr President.
I think it is important to refer first of all to an issue that you have all mentioned; the fight against terrorism, which, as you know, is the fundamental priority at the moment, as the Spanish Presidency has pointed out; let us make it our priority of priorities.
I have had the opportunity to say on certain occasions, in relation to the decisions taken in view of 11 September, that the European Union has been able to respond to the circumstances when required to do so in terms of the progress made in the fight against terrorism.
I believe that extraordinary progress has been made on this point, which would have been unimaginable a few months ago, and I would like to point out that, clearly, and unfortunately, it is not the Spanish Presidency which has to be encouraged to adopt measures to combat terrorism; it must instead be a sustained and active effort on all parts, with full consideration given to anyone suffering as a result of terrorism, whoever they may be, which is never justified in any way. We must understand that all terrorism is the same, that it must be fought in all its forms and that its only fate must be destruction and ultimate eradication. We have sufficient instruments for doing this, which can be updated if necessary.
In relation to the Barcelona European Council, I would like to refer to the issue of the Summit and its location. The Barcelona European Council, as an international meeting, had certain precedents which had to be taken into account: the meeting in Seattle, the European Council in Nice, the one in Gothenburg and the meeting in Genoa.
I would like to point out that, in June 2001, the World Bank decided, of its own accord, to suspend the meeting it was going to hold in Barcelona. Therefore, as well as applauding the civil attitude of the city of Barcelona and its people in the clearest way possible, and whilst applauding the peaceful spirit of the great majority of demonstrators in Barcelona, I wish to say that there are obviously other groups that are not so peaceful and, it must be said, are not interested in being peaceful and are not even interested in demonstrating, but rather they believe they can carry out violence with impunity.
If Barcelona has been a much calmer city, although 17 members of the Spanish security forces have been injured, if it has been much calmer than on other occasions, it has been because all the relevant measures have been taken, including preventing the people who were intent on violence, with all its consequences for Barcelona, from reaching the city, and that is a service to citizens everywhere and also, in this case, to the Spanish citizens, the European citizens and democratic legitimacy."@en1
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