Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-04-Speech-2-020"
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"en.20060404.6.2-020"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, at the heart of the new growth and employment policy with which we seek to move the Lisbon agenda forward, are the integrated economic guidelines; they are integrated because they reflect the recognition that we cannot satisfactorily perform the task of bringing Europe more growth and more jobs if we fail to make the close connection between macro-economic, micro-economic and employment goals.
At present, though, it strikes me that the most important thing is that we should all work together on making the broader European public aware of the fact that we do actually have a common strategy for growth and job creation, of the priorities that we share, and of the fact that we are working together to deliver on them.
The economic guidelines form the framework within which the Member States and the Community institutions put together their respective plans for the implementation of the strategy for growth and jobs. It was during the past year that the Commission first presented them, and I am grateful to your House for giving them such close attention, for they will be a guide – not only during this year but also thereafter – to what we are considering doing and to the basis on which we will be doing it.
The fact is that the growth and employment strategy, which we have been trying to implement for something like a year, is a completely new kind of process. It is not yet altogether straightforward to pass final judgment on the elements of this new process, but one thing can be said today, albeit with a great deal of caution, and that is that the Member States have in their national reform programmes, basically allowed themselves to be guided by the priorities set out in the integrated economic guidelines, as has the Commission with its proposal for a Community action programme.
It is important that I should point out that the growth and employment strategy is based on a three-year cycle. What that means is that there is no intention that the guidelines should be amended from one year to another. They may well, though, be adapted to take account of changed realities and the insights that we gain from experience, and that will, of course be necessary, but we do not, at present, see any reason why these guidelines should be amended for 2006; they are still a sound basis for the dialogues in which the Commission is currently engaged with the Member States, the object of which is to get the national reform programmes actually up and running.
As for the individual pillars of this strategy, my fellow-Commissioners Mr Almunia and Mr Špidla will have something more to say about its macro-economic and employment aspects. I would like, briefly, to discuss its micro-economic dimension and highlight the significant advances that have been made in this respect in some areas, particularly as regards the key issue for Europe’s economic future, namely the transition to a knowledge-based society and its becoming an economy founded on innovation, research and development. It was for that reason that we were so insistent on imposing quantitative targets for research and development.
You will be aware that this was an area in which the national reform programmes produced rather disappointing results, for they would, on average, have brought us up to 2.2% by 2010 instead of the desired 3%. In the few weeks this year in which we have been able to address this issue, we have, however, been able to get the Member States to commit significantly more. If they stick to them, we will be able to achieve 2.6% by 2010, which is an improvement, but – and I have to make this clear – it is not enough, and so the Commission will continue to bring pressure to bear on them.
The European Council, held the week before last and which you will be discussing tomorrow, also discussed, and came to conclusions on, important aspects of the strategy’s implementation; I would refer you in particular to the Council resolutions on the promotion of small and medium-sized businesses, on improving the lawmaking process and on energy policy.
From time to time, the question is discussed – in connection with the guidelines – of whether the Commission, when assessing the national reform plans in future, should or should not hand down recommendations specific to the countries in question. We refrained from doing so in the first round for a reason that we regarded as important, namely the fact that we did not know what the national reform programmes would look like, but I would like to point out that the Commission does, self-evidently, retain the option of including country-specific recommendations in future progress reports and that this is an option of which we will avail ourselves as and when necessary."@en1
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