Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-05-26-Speech-4-009"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050526.4.4-009"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the compiling of integrated guidelines at three-yearly intervals will tend to improve the coordination of national economic policies. The new integrated approach will serve to eliminate the three hundred annual reports that have hitherto been required from the Member States. In future, there will be only one comprehensive national report from each country. This espousal of the Lisbon strategy by business and labour organisations and by national parliaments will strengthen European democracy. The guidelines themselves, however, are too general and take no account of the marked differences between Member States. The Commission must therefore be encouraged to present a communication identifying the key challenges for each of the Member States. More differentiation by sector is also needed in the treatment of economic problems.
The Commission’s task is not easy. There are no simple answers to the complex economic, social and environmental challenges of the present day. Enlargement has made the Union even more heterogeneous. The increasingly technical nature of legislation does not make the task of communicating with the European public any easier. As the debate on the Constitutional Treaty has shown, the institutional structure of Europe is not properly understood. Community jargon fails to address the everyday concerns of many of our fellow citizens. To an increasing extent, the European Union is being blamed for all the problems of the day.
Be that as it may, talk of the impending demise of the EU does not stand up to scrutiny. Seen from outside, the Union is not only the most successful peace initiative ever; it is also the political entity in which human rights are best protected. Our social market economy produces high living standards while maintaining some of the world’s highest social-welfare and environmental standards. Of course Europe could do better! That, indeed, is the aim of the Lisbon strategy. In three years, the Union has created 6.5 million additional jobs but has not managed to curb unemployment. Economic growth remains too weak, especially in France, Germany and Italy. Nevertheless, the EU is the world’s leading exporter and the biggest market for the rest of the world. The Union’s current account is in balance, whereas the United States is running both an external and an internal deficit.
An entity which accounts for almost a quarter of all world trade is obviously competitive. To be competitive, an entity needs to enjoy better productivity than its rivals. High living standards are the result of a very competitive economy and a high rate of employment, but are not in themselves a yardstick for competitiveness. The difference between Americans and Europeans in terms of average
income does not mean that Europe is being left behind but rather reflects excessive increases in the incomes of the richest 20% in the United States. In Europe, the battle to achieve greater productivity is inseparable from the battle to ensure fairer distribution of the fruits of growth, greater social cohesion and effective protection of the natural environment. It is no coincidence that the Nordic countries provide a high level of social and environmental protection. The high public spending this entails has not prevented the economies of the Nordic countries from rising steadily in the world rankings for performance and innovation.
Europe’s performance in the global marketplace is far from disastrous. An analysis carried out by the services of the Commission has shown that two thirds of US productivity growth derives from the service sector, particularly wholesale and retail trade, real estate and financial intermediation. These are not markets in which the United States and Europe are in direct competition. In the primary and secondary sectors, Europe has been outperforming the United States, achieving better productivity rates in 37 out of the 56 sectors studied. The United States, on the other hand, has an unchallenged lead in the manufacture of semiconductors and office machinery. When it comes to communication services and computer and related services, however, productivity is higher in Europe. Basically, Europe lags behind only in certain high-tech sectors: ICT, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and GM products.
The area where we lag furthest behind is that of research. In absolute figures, the United States spends about USD 110 billion per year more than Europe on research and development, an amount equivalent to the EU budget. European industry has the most leeway to make up here. Of the 1.3 million researchers in the United States, 80% work for the private sector, compared with only 48% of Europe’s one million researchers.
The integrated guidelines will have to be fine-tuned in the course of the next three-year period. The euro area currently has a sound macroeconomic framework, with low inflation, a strong currency and very low interest rates. However, the three Member States outside the euro area have higher rates of growth, even though their monetary independence comes at the cost of higher interest rates. Eight of the ten new member countries enjoy substantial growth, but they do have structural problems. The integrated guidelines, Mr President, must take more account of the diversity of the Member States’ specific situations and problems."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples