Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-02-22-Speech-2-020"
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"en.20050222.4.2-020"2
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".
Mr President, I would like to begin, on behalf of the Commission and on my own behalf, by congratulating the two rapporteurs for the two reports subject to debate, Mr Goebbels and Mr Karas, and all the members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs who have contributed to producing the text we are discussing here today in plenary.
Macroeconomic balance is a condition necessary to growth, but more policies are needed: structural reforms are needed. It will be very positive for the two important issues being debated in Parliament today and being debated in the Commission and in the Council to come together at the March European Council, so that we can reach a forward-looking agreement, improving the relationship between the two strategies and, of course, keeping a clear view of the principles of each of them. One of them being more sustainability, more social cohesion, more growth, more employment and more competitiveness; the other, better budgetary discipline and greater sustainability of public finances as a necessary basis for economic stability and in order to create the conditions that all investors, all wealth creators, need in order to look to the future with more confidence.
I must tell you that I largely agree with the analysis appearing in each report. In the case of the Lisbon strategy, five years after its approval by the European Council, we can all agree on the need to reaffirm the objectives and the pillars of the strategy, to ratify our support for them, and to express our regret that the implementation of the policies necessary to move towards achieving those objectives has been delayed.
In the case of the situation of public finances and the existing framework for monitoring the evolution of budgets and public accounts — the Stability and Growth Pact — we agree with the reference values, with the pillars established in the Treaty. Generally speaking, the evolution of public finances in the Economic and Monetary Union since the pact came into force has moved in the right direction, but, as Mr Karas said, there are too many countries, ten at the moment, in a situation of excessive deficit; some Member States of the Union have levels of public debt compared to their gross domestic product above the 60% reference value laid down in the Treaty, and we therefore need to reflect and seek improvements in the application of the pact, and we need to strengthen the instruments we rely on to make this framework for fiscal governance a success.
With regard to the first of the reports, I would like to explain the Commission’s point of view to you. It is clear that the European Union, and the eurozone in particular, has a lower rate of growth than our competitors, than the other economic regions of the industrialised world, not to mention the emerging countries which have rates of growth of 6, 7 or even 10%. That low growth creates a situation of high unemployment and lack of jobs and seriously calls into question the sustainability of our social model and the sustainability of our model of society in general.
Structural reforms are therefore necessary and, from that point of view, as the honourable Members know, in its Communication of 2 February the Commission proposed certain guidelines for moving towards a review and improvement of the application of the Lisbon strategy, establishing a series of priorities based around three key elements: firstly, making Europe a more attractive place for investment and work, extending and developing the internal market, improving regulations, guaranteeing open and competitive markets, extending and improving European infrastructure networks; secondly, improving knowledge and innovation as fundamental factors for growth, increasing and improving research and development, promoting innovation and the adoption of information technologies, and contributing to the creation of a solid European industrial base; thirdly, pursuing the objective of creating more and better jobs, establishing policies capable of attracting more people to the labour market, modernising social protection systems, increasing the adaptability of workers and companies and investing more in human capital.
On the basis of these elements, we can restore the impetus that the creators, the founders, of the Lisbon strategy — if I may use that expression — had in mind five years ago, and make up for the time lost; at the same time, we will have to act with greater ‘ownership’ at national level, because there is no question that many of the actions necessary to make the Lisbon strategy a success basically fall within national competence.
In the Commission’s view, the role of macroeconomic policy in this regard is to sustain growth. But increasing growth potential is a basic function of structural reforms. We cannot rely on macroeconomic policy to achieve it. That task must be entrusted to the structural reforms such as those appearing in the list that the European Commission has presented.
With regard to the second report — the Stability and Growth Pact, the situation of public finances — which Mr Karas has just presented, I must point out that the negotiations within Ecofin are making very satisfactory progress: further progress was made at last week's meeting. There will be more meetings, of the Eurogroup on 7 March, and of Ecofin on 8 March, which are going to be very useful in terms of reaching an agreement.
I am optimistic about the possibility of reaching an agreement at the European Council of 22 and 23 March which maintains the principles and reference values of the Treaty, as well as the pillars of fiscal and budgetary discipline laid down in the Treaty, which we must all respect. That agreement should improve the instruments so that the governance of the Stability and Growth Pact can prevent the failings we have experienced over recent years, contribute to helping the countries with excessive deficit problems to move towards adjustment, to comply with the reference values of the Treaty, both in terms of deficit and debt, to place more emphasis on sustainability and on the long term, because we are going to have to face the challenge of the ageing of the population and, at the same time, to create a better link between the budgetary discipline that continues to be a necessary element for growth and the growth strategy, more employment, sustainability — in other words the Lisbon Strategy — because the two strategies are linked to each other."@en1
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