Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-15-Speech-3-084"
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"en.20060315.3.3-084"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, although ‘growth’ and ‘employment’ are the keywords of the Lisbon Strategy, it seems to me that they need again to be clarified.
If a company undergoing structural change resorts to making staff redundant, then the primary responsibility for this does not lie with policymakers; on the contrary, we are dealing in such a case with a failure on the part of the business, for businesses can recognise in good time when structural change is going to become necessary and when it has to be set in motion, and we demand of European businesses that they do more to give structural change a positive outcome. Laying staff off is always the worst way to handle it, and it is one to which they must not have recourse.
There is something else we must say to European businesses, however: It is that it is possible to grow by using high business profits to create new products, to develop new technologies and new capacities, rather than only to buy up other businesses.
I would like to point out – in the most friendly way possible – that all our experience with the buying-up of businesses over the past twenty years has shown, in the vast majority of cases, no positive effect on the business or on the economy as a whole. I would prefer it if European companies were to use the huge profits they have made in recent times to invest in new research and production capacities in Europe rather than for funding campaigns to take over other businesses.
There is also something that members of parliaments need to do. It has been complained, and quite rightly, that the general public have not been involved in developing the strategy for growth and employment. That is a task for national policy-makers and national parliaments.
I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, to talk to your counterparts in the national parliaments in the countries from which you come, and get this issue put on the national policy agenda. It is, after all, no part of the Commission’s business to prompt opposition politicians in the Member States to do their jobs and to ensure that this issue is put on the agenda. That is for parliamentarians to do, so I really do urge you to bring your influence to bear here, for only if we succeed in setting in motion a broad political debate in the Member States and their legislatures will we succeed in creating the necessary awareness of the need for a joint effort, not only by policymakers, but also on the part of the public, if our competitiveness is to be unimpaired.
When we, in twenty-first century Europe, use the term 'growth', we cannot be talking about any kind of growth other than that which is sustainable, socially defensible and environmentally responsible. Anything else would mean that we had learned nothing from past decades, and I ask that that be taken to heart once and for all. When the Commission talks about growth, it is talking in terms of sustainable growth, which involves environmental innovation, energy efficiency, competition for higher quality rather than for lower social standards, lower environmental standards or lower wages, so I hope that is now clear once and for all.
When we talk about jobs, we are not talking about just any old jobs, for we have come to recognise that the great social question of our time is whether we will, in amidst the storms of globalisation, succeed in making available sufficient well paid and skilled jobs. That is the big issue with which we have to deal. Our concern is not with just any old jobs; what matters is that they should be jobs that will last in times when competition is getting tougher.
The consequence of that in our present situation is that certain clear demands must be made of the Member States, which must be told quite firmly that the time for a change of course is now upon us. Now is the time for us to take – and with all the determination we can muster – the step into the knowledge-based society. We cannot afford any societies in Europe whose educational policies exclude rather than foster or discriminate against people rather than integrating them. We need an education policy that makes the fullest possible use of this continent’s reserves of education.
We cannot afford social policies that, while allowing young women to get a good education, do not thereafter give them the chance to make something of it for lack of any compatibility between family life and working life, and we cannot afford social policies that simply spit older workers out of the production process because it is believed that they are no longer needed. Today, none of these things is a viable proposition any longer, and our strategy makes that abundantly clear.
We also affirm that the European single market, a policy that faces up to international competition, is good for growth and employment, and it is for that reason that this Commission does not believe in economic patriotism of any kind whatever. We wish to reiterate that those who want a big European internal market must also accept the fact that businesses are coming into being in order to operate in it without reference to borders.
If there is to be a European market, there must also be European enterprises. The Commission notes with concern the renationalisation of economic thinking in some parts of the European Union and warns against it, for – as almost all speakers today have said – the right way is to address Europe’s problems together.
I also, though, have something to say to European businesses. For years now, we have been pursuing a policy of improving conditions for European businesses, but what we expect of them now, at a time when the biggest of them are doing better than ever before, is that they should be aware of their responsibility for Europe as a business location. Businesses are not only under an obligation to make short-term profits; they also have a responsibility for the site where they make them."@en1
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