Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-12-Speech-3-061"
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"en.20030212.3.3-061"2
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Mr President, I should like to thank all the speakers for their comments, views and thoughts, which will be passed on to the Member States and will help both them and the Council to make a success of the Spring Summit.
Issues arising from enlargement are important in relation to the Lisbon strategy. The Lisbon strategy basically summarises the European development and social model and, if we want to make enlargement a real success rather than just a decision to enlarge the European Union, we need to see how we can extend the main elements of this model to the new countries, how we can set up social, economic and political structures in most of the new Member States, which still have quite a long way to go to meet current European standards, and how we can transplant these standards and promote unification. This is a new challenge for everyone and, of course, for several presidencies, not just the Greek Presidency or this spring Council.
I shall close with the letter received by the presidency from the three leaders already referred to. This is one contribution and we want to examine it. We have had contributions from other Member States which have not perhaps received as much publicity. They raise a series of issues which the spring Council will be examining and I agree with the Member who said that the European Union will need to demonstrate in March – the presidency does not of course have magic powers and cannot decide on behalf of the Fifteen – the Fifteen will need to demonstrate that, despite the climate in which we are operating, we have managed to take decisions which will open up prospects, build confidence and work for the future good of the European Union.
It seems to me that the entire debate can be summarised in three key words, three key messages. The first is confidence, the second is action and the third is balance, the European model. Let me explain myself.
Public opinion, what the citizens of the European Union want to come out of a Council such as the Spring Summit, which has an agenda of important and extensive issues, is confidence, not just in the abstract sense, but based on a realisation that the European Union is in a position to take decisions on growth, on employment in these difficult times and on a series of other issues of real concern to our citizens in their everyday life, such as social issues, pensions, health, education and quality of life. This is an aspect that, I think, mainly has to do with economic and social affairs. However, I think that, especially in today’s circumstances, questions of confidence do not arise solely from decisions relating specifically to Lisbon matters. We are in a period, to paraphrase Tolstoy, of ‘War or Peace’ and Europe’s confidence in the European Union will also depend on the decisions it takes on political issues. Everyone is waiting to see what decisions we, as the European Union, are in a position to take. The Greek Presidency, in agreement with its partners, has convened a special summit on political issues next Monday, in order to consider how we can make sure Europe is in the thick of things and how we can gain the confidence of the citizens of Europe on this front and prove that Europe can progress, that it can progress in an organised fashion and that it can take decisions. President Prodi mentioned the importance of this sort of image under present circumstances and I shall have an opportunity to say more on this during this afternoon’s debate on Iraq.
This confidence, to come back to Lisbon, touches on a series of issues for which, as a number of speakers quite rightly mentioned, there is no institutional basis for progressing as one might perhaps wish. However, they are issues on which progress must be made and the open method of coordination, which has proven its worth over recent years post Lisbon, has injected flexibility into the Community system and allowed us to make some headway. I think the debate under way in the Convention may give us a more efficient institutional system, which could allow us to make decisions which are important to the citizens of Europe rather than getting entrenched in specific remits which prevent Europe from moving forward on a series of day-to-day issues. Greece, not as the presidency but as a Member State, is one of the countries that wants us to move in this direction.
The second point I noted from the debate and want to highlight is the real need for action. We do not need new objectives, we need to implement much that has already been decided. Everyone realises this, the presidency realises this, the Council also realises this and we are working in this direction. However, I should like to point out that, whatever you may say about Lisbon’s progress to date, it is also worth remembering and highlighting the positive developments. I should just like to mention employment, because that was one of the main points of Lisbon, and remind you that, during these difficult years, with a recession in 2002, Europe managed to create 600 000 new jobs and that between 1999, the year before Lisbon, and 2003, an estimated 7 000 000 new jobs have been created in Europe. I know we also have the problem of unemployment, but mentioning this does not play down existing problems; I just want to point out that we have to see not just where we have failed to hit target; we also have to look at what has been achieved in relation to the targets set.
I should like to comment on another basic Lisbon issue, to do with balanced policies. I really do believe that Lisbon is one of Europe’s many responses, and a very serious response, to the issue of globalisation. And that is very, very important. The whole core idea of Lisbon revolves around the key word of balance, balanced policies. What we have to decide, of course, is how we can strike a balance between policies to strengthen competitiveness and policies to strengthen the social dimension. It seems to me that you have to decide how to answer this. How to answer the need to strengthen and remove all limits on the market system and, at the same time, strengthen issues to do with employment, the social model or the concept of growth and the concept of sustainable development.
The success of post-war Europe has been built on its ability to find a satisfactory answer to the question of balanced policies. We cannot compare Europe with other models without thinking about it very carefully and setting certain limits. We can use benchmarking in each country to see where we were before and where we are now. We can even use it between Member States of the European Union; but benchmarking between the European Union and other countries is another matter, because no country anywhere in the world has developed the elements that typify and constitute the post-war European development and social model. No country has fast rates of growth and social protection and sustainable development and environmental protection all at once, meaning that any benchmarking is flawed. Useful yes, as long as you are aware of its very narrow limitations. We know what the price will be if we ignore the demands of competitiveness. So we are forced to proceed in the direction of key factors that currently strengthen the competitive potential of our economy. Otherwise we shall achieve nothing. However, we also know what the repercussions may be if competitiveness is our only criterion or if employment, or social protection or environmental protection are our only criteria. I think that all our concerns centre around how we can safeguard the Europe we know, by which I do not mean safeguarding old inflexible structures, I mean safeguarding old values and achievements, taking account of the fact that times have changed and that we need to move with the times if we are to have the sort of success we had in the past.
Numerous speakers rightly raised issues to do with employment and employment arrangements. One of the hardest problems is how to tread the fine line between the need for flexibility and the need to strengthen competitiveness and job standards and protect workers. These are the values we have always known in Europe and these are the values we want to safeguard. No one objective takes precedence. There is a very fine balance between all of them and therein lies the rub, therein lies the concern; Europe has acted on this concern for years and has managed to find its own answer. We believe that it will be able to find a new answer to these issues in this new, difficult phase.
One speaker pointed out or, if you like, criticised the fact there is no specific emphasis on sustainable development or the environment. I should like to start by reminding you that it is Europe as a whole that has put the emphasis on environmental issues. We in Europe have done this, which is why we are critical of other countries which have not signed the Kyoto agreement and so on. Of course, we still have a great deal to do in this direction. We, the presidency, want to focus over the next few months on removing obstacles to environmental technologies, strengthening procedures to promote renewable sources of energy, promoting approaches which allow transport infrastructures to be properly costed and polluting sources of energy to be taxed and examining the report on the environment which will be submitted at the spring Council. We also agree that the question of investments and trans-European networks are important issues in the current phase of low manufacturing output in Europe, and it is vital that we find new, innovative ways of funding and boosting investments in both the private and public sectors."@en1
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