Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-22-Speech-3-064"
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"en.20060322.11.3-064"2
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".
Mr President, today we debate the Commission’s priorities for 2007, but tomorrow our Heads of State and Government must find the means, the guts and the grit to make these priorities a reality.
We have before us a blueprint for the future with its emphasis on knowledge, enterprise, jobs and energy. The 2007 Annual Policy Strategy succeeds in putting flesh on the bones of the Hampton Court proposals, which could help make Europe the most dynamic and competitive economy in the world, if Member States would only move beyond the platitudes dished up at the annual Lisbon Spring Council. I have seen the draft Council conclusions. Fine words from such faint hearts! Europe deserves better. It deserves the shared responsibility of which Mr Barroso spoke. That is why Liberals and Democrats welcome the ambition displayed by the European Commission.
This paper promises what previous annual policy strategies manifestly failed to provide: practical proposals for European renewal by creating legal migration channels and a common European asylum system – and their corollary of better border management – to provide the workers and security that Europe needs; by fast-tracking a European energy policy; completing the internal market for energy and gas; investing in clean coal technologies; and balancing flexibility and social protection with the demands of markets to boost growth and competitiveness.
There is one thing that the Commission has not learned. It puts the use of resources and environmental protection under the heading of solidarity. It should put them under the heading of prosperity, because until we learn that the environment and green growth is part of prosperity rather than solidarity, we will not have the correct perspective on such matters. Add to these the enlargement of the eurozone and the welcoming of Bulgaria and Romania, and 2007 could be a seminal year for Europe, particularly if we get the constitutional process back on track.
However, success hinges on a factor that has been absent up to now, and cannot be replaced by any number of Commission proposals: national ownership of necessary reforms by Member States. Who will trust leadership which says one thing and does another; which agrees policies, but then backtracks, disrupts and weakens their implementation? I refer not only to attacks on the services or takeovers directives from economic protectionists, I am talking about a more general myopia that prevents Member States from seeing the bigger picture; the myopia which prompted the Council to throw out proposals to name and shame poorly performing countries and refuse adequate funding for Europe’s priority areas. It is also one reason why the ambitions of last year’s annual policy strategy to make progress on Doha, on the Lisbon goals and on the Constitution came famously unstuck.
So that is the challenge facing Europe’s leaders when they convene for tomorrow’s Spring Council. Europe needs them to construct a coalition of the coherent."@en1
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