Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-04-05-Speech-3-023"
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Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to be able, in my capacity as President of the Council, to again greet you, Mr President Borrell, you, honourable Members, and you, Members of the Commission. I am now appearing before you for the second time, and you will perhaps recall the promise I made at the beginning of the Austrian Presidency, to the effect that we did not want this to be a presidency characterised by our own themes, aspirations and desires, but that we wanted to offer you a team presidency, one that would see us working very well together with you, the democratically-elected European Parliament, with the Commission, and – of course – with the Member States too. Regaining the confidence of the people is a massive task, and it is one that we can accomplish only together, and it is together that we must address the great issues that Europe alone can resolve. In so doing, we must make use of all the institutions. There is no point in one institution pointing the finger at another or criticising it. We are all in the same boat and must keep a firm hold of the oars and row together if we are to gain speed and be able to reach our destination.
It is still true that the European Investment Bank will help us out with EUR 10 billion in additional risk capital, and, if the private contributions are added to that, that adds up to an additional injection of EUR 30 billion.
It strikes me as particularly significant that the European Council has adopted Mr Barroso’s idea of founding a European institute for technology, although it was at first highly controversial, for the understandable reason that there are those who fear the creation of huge parallel bureaucracies, while others fear that the existing centres of excellence could lose out. I fully support the basic idea that the Commission is putting forward here, the idea of creating a link between institutions of higher education and industry, between research and development on the one hand and the end users on the other. This would not be some sort of super-authority, but a perfectly developed network primarily intended to really cooperate with the institutions in the Member States. I congratulate Mr Barroso and the Commission on their proposal’s adoption and acceptance, and we look forward to concrete proposals for legislation by June of this year.
Something else that is important while we are on the subject of the budget is the undertaking we have given to make substantially more funding available for students’ programmes and for exchange programmes for apprentices. You have already heard about the additional EUR 800 million in the budget compromise right now. That is a very interesting and important initiative towards giving young people new prospects.
What was interesting was that I recently read a number of studies that considered in a critical light the reasons why we have as yet not achieved the ambitious goals of our strategy – Lisbon, jobs, employment – and one of the reasons given by the Sapir report and also by the
was that there was too little 'national ownership' – dreadful term! – which means, in as many words, that nobody in the Member States actually feels themselves to be responsible.
This is where I am setting a good example: at the last Council of Ministers in Austria, I decided that we would have a coordinator at ministerial level, so, with immediate effect, our Minister for the Economy and Labour will be the political coordinator for this whole process, and I will invite every Member State to do likewise, so that we will have policy coordinators who can then – perhaps in the Competition Council – monitor our achievement of the goals we have set ourselves. That would be a vitally important move towards establishing the credibility of what we have, together, undertaken to do.
One thing that was of course completely new was energy policy, and here the prime mover was the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, although I also want to thank Tony Blair for having in fact set the whole thing off at Hampton Court. It was of course the first day of January this year that gave us a real wake-up call and raised the alarm, for it was on 1 January, while I was sitting alongside Angela Merkel at the New Year’s concert, that the Russians cut the energy supply – by 30% in the first night, and by 50% in the second. We managed – with the help of the Commission, of Commissioner Piebalgs and many others – to defuse the crisis within four days, but the problems have of course not gone away.
Almost all the producers are based in political crisis zones; nearly all global conflicts have something to do with energy. Raw materials prices are fluctuating wildly; there is but little diversification. Some of the time, and in some areas, Europe is at high risk of a black-out. Climate change, with all its attendant phenomena, is an issue that we have to face; an answer has to be found to the issue of the worldwide increase in demand for energy, and we must not, of course, lose sight of the enormous security risks.
The whole situation positively cries out for a new joint effort on the part of Europe, and the Commission has done a first-class job of preparing the ground with its Green Paper, which the Council has taken on board, also defining as its three objectives security of supply, the competitiveness of our own industry and the improvement of environmental quality. In practical terms, we agreed on a 20% reduction in energy use – something that I do not think goes without saying and is therefore all the more significant. What that in fact means is that the EU is setting itself the long-term target of decoupling economic growth from energy consumption. I regard this as one of the most important decisions that this Council has taken, and one which will demand enormous efforts if it is to be put into effect.
We want to increase the contribution of renewable energy from the present 7% to 15%; that, too, has been a cause of much controversy and is in no way an automatic process. Both at the national level and together, there is much to be done. The use of biofuels, which currently stands at 2%, is to be increased to 8%, and that will inevitably demand technology and research; it will involve consideration of second-generation biofuels, the implementation of CARS 21, and cooperation with the motor industry, and brings with it an enormous opportunity for growth, of which we want to make use.
Turning to the cross-border trade in electricity, we aim to achieve a 10% share between networks, which would substantially reduce the risk of a black-out for our consumers. It must not be forgotten that the pipelines, the networks, the power stations and network security offer economic opportunity, with between EUR 800 billion and EUR 1 000 billion invested in them, mainly from private sources. If we make wise use of this by way of a common European economic policy, it will prove to be a powerful generator of jobs and will also make us more secure.
I believe that you too can see that we have, from the very outset, tried to establish this collaborative approach within a team presidency. Without making much fanfare about it, the past weeks and months have seen us, together with you and the Commission, able to achieve quite a few solutions.
Connected with this – and this is something else we debated frankly, without public disagreement – there is the requirement that there should be no protectionism in a relatively small market like Europe. Having been Minister for the Economy, and hence also for energy, for six years, I know what I am talking about here. There may well have been a time when we could all, off our own bat, create national champions or believe ourselves capable of disregarding European regulations, but those days are gone.
What is needed is for the markets to be opened up, and it has been agreed that this is what will happen to the electricity and gas market by mid-2007. The instruments to do this exist; the Commission is in possession of them, and so let it go ahead and use them without further ado, for one reason why it is the guardian of the Treaties is in order to guarantee security of supply to our consumers.
It has to be said, though, that the energy mix has lost none of its importance, and the decision as to what source of energy to use still has to be taken at national level; that is something I want to make perfectly clear. Each country must make up its own mind whether or not it wants nuclear power stations; Austria’s position is quite clear on this – and I know that other countries take a different one – and that must be respected. I guarantee that it will be, and so, of course, does the European Parliament.
It is vitally important that we consider this not only in economic terms but also in the foreign policy context, and that is why it was agreed that the Commission, working jointly with the High Representative, Mr Solana, should produce a strategy paper on the foreign policy dimension of energy policy. With hindsight, these discussions and these decisions will be regarded as a breakthrough in terms of a genuine common European energy policy. Reviews to be carried out in every term of the coming presidency will ensure that this issue is not to be lost from sight.
It also, though, strikes me as very significant – and reaching consensus on this was not easy, for I had to spend a lot of time talking with all the Heads of Government in order to prepare the way for it – that I managed to get everyone to accept the decision on the services directive that your House took democratically and by a large majority.
I am also grateful to the Commission for having, as soon as today, produced a proposal that is – as far as I can see so far – in line with this consensus. I really am keen that we should work together as closely as possible in a fast-track procedure at second reading in order to arrive at a joint resolution as quickly as possible.
I would also like to express my thanks to the social partners at the European level for having played their part in this. The employers did not find this easy, but they did make a constructive contribution. Following this breakthrough – for that is how I regard the services directive – I would, though, ask for a similarly committed approach to a second important matter, that being the Working Time Directive.
We all know how important it is that we make progress here, and how it will be if we do, but we will need to be sensitive in taking account of national peculiarities. I regard this as an example
of an area where the subsidiarity principle can come into its own. A sensible compromise is preferable to having no solution at all. I would be very happy if we were to be able, during the Austrian Presidency, to achieve together real progress at all three levels – services, the Working Time Directive and the budget.
I would like to start by giving you a brief report on the European Council. A year ago, under Luxembourg’s Presidency, we set ourselves the task of giving the Lisbon Strategy for growth and employment new impetus. It is not enough to come up with rhetorical and woolly phrases; what we need instead is results and actions of the kind of which Robert Schuman spoke, when he said that Europe would not be built in a day, but by action, and probably by actions in the plural. We have also, and for the first time, brought about institutional change, by involving the European social partners in the deliberations of the European Council, which was attended by the President of the European Trade Union Congress, Mr Cándido Méndez Rodriguez, with the President of UNICE, the Union of Industrial and Employers’ Confederations of Europe, Mr Ernest-Antoine
Seillière, taking part in the discussions, and with the President of the European Central Bank, Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, present for the first time. The President of this Parliament, Mr Borrell, did of course speak for it and thereby make a very important contribution to this discussion on business and job creation.
That brings me to the budget. I know as well as anyone that bringing it into being has been a problematic business. Some of you, of course, may be permitting yourselves smiles of amusement in the knowledge that it has – contrary to what one might presume – demanded hard work on the part of three presidencies: Luxembourg, the UK, and now Austria. This budget is for a period of seven years and is intended to provide not only legal certainty for the programmes but also, and primarily, to enable the new Member States to implement the things for which they hope. I really am appreciative of the way in which – as everyone in this House has in fact pointed out – we have thought in terms of the whole and not of individual interests.
Believe me, I too have had to intrude on several internal security zones to arrive at this common consensus. As you will be aware, this has also called for a very great deal of dedication on the part of the Austrian Presidency’s negotiating team – our finance minister, our foreign minister and of course myself – in our dealings with Mr Barroso and Mr Borrell, to whom we are very grateful.
You will also be aware that we had to stick closely to the December compromise; we were able to offer up to 3.5 billion, although Parliament wanted 4 billion, and it testifies to the presidency’s teamwork that the Commission eventually helped us out by coming up with the missing half billion for administrative expenses, so that Parliament got the minimum of 4 billion in the programmes that it wanted.
If one includes the European Investment Bank in the analysis, one comes up with some interesting results. There will be a billion for strengthening the EU’s external aspects, and an extra billion will really stiffen the sinews of the Common Foreign and Security Policy. You can add to that EUR 5 billion for the Lisbon Strategy, half from the European budget and half from the European Investment Bank, cash. The rest are loans, taking the figures up to 10 billion for research, 20 for the trans-European networks, 30 for small and medium-sized businesses – all in all, EUR 60 billion.
There have been some very considerable shifts, and I believe that this is a compromise that we can honestly recommend should be accepted. I must now also go to COREPER and to the other Member States, but I do think we have already achieved something that really is credible in the eyes of the outside world.
Finally, there is foreign policy, where we have, quite apart from managing such crises as bird flu, the row about the cartoons, the gas crisis and the great foreign policy issues, to clarify a number of points, but that is not the main issue today. There is only one issue I want to mention, because I have seen that Alexander Milinkevich is up in the gallery, and that issue is one that also featured at the European Council.
The situation in Belarus is, of course, a tragic one; I can tell you right now that that is how I personally see it. I had, yesterday, the honour and pleasure of a long personal conversation with Mr Milinkevich. He is a calm and reasonable man and deserves from us every conceivable political and economic support wherever it is required, especially through the various party families, for the opposition in Belarus is constituted by a platform composed of the most diverse groups. The state’s forces having been brutal in their treatment of demonstrators, hundreds are still in jail, and thousands of students have lost their places at university; workers have lost their jobs and families their incomes. A number of Member States have formed a coalition, the Visegrad states – Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary – among them, and Austria is also playing its part by offering scholarships to Belarusian students, and this is what prompts me to ask the Commission for support, in order that we might give Belarus real help. Above all, we must join together in raising our voices and demanding the prompt release of the internees, in particular of the presidential candidate Alexander Kosulin.
At the same time, we should also stress that the EU has no interest in isolating Belarus, and certainly not its people. We should also support civil society in Belarus in establishing the democracy they want. The regime there will be subject to the restrictive measures we adopted at the European Council for as long as it continues its authoritarian approach and systematically suppresses civil society.
We still have three months of our presidency ahead of us, and I know that there is a lot of work in store for us, but I am confident that we will – as we have done before – resolve the important issues through good contacts and good cooperation. I am very confident that you will, as you have done before, have your own contributions to make, which may well be critical or exacting, if you have particular thoughts or ideas. I can promise you my absolute cooperation, and I will also try to move as much as possible forward at Council level, without great fanfare and proclamation, but rather in such a way as to achieve real results. That is my programme, and I believe I can point to its having achieved a certain amount even before our presidency has reached its halfway term.
Our presidency has set itself very definite objectives. You have yourselves been able to see from the media that many of them were highly contentious. We have not allowed ourselves to be discouraged by this and have included several very precise formulations in the conclusions, particularly in those concerned with work and growth. The most important thing for us is that the employment situation should be improved for the sake of Europe’s unemployed, who number some 18 million. In practical terms, we want to achieve a 1% growth in employment by means of the national reform programmes and improved framework conditions, which would amount to the creation of some 2 million jobs a year, or, by 2010, a net increase of an extra 10 million.
Secondly, it is our quite deliberate intention to concentrate on the training of the young, so that 85% of young people under the age of 22 should get higher education. Our intention is that the number of school drop-outs should be reduced by 10%, and, quite specifically, that by as soon as next year, all young people should, within six months, be offered either a job, an apprenticeship or the chance of further training, with this period later being reduced to four months.
We have agreed a gender equality pact in the workplace, ‘flexicurity’ is being discussed in great detail at every level, and the globalisation fund proposed by the Commission provides us with the proper means of giving, through retraining or additional training, a new chance in the labour market to those workers adversely affected by structural change.
The next big issue is, of course, the question of how that is to be achieved, and we have taken the decision to prioritise the small and medium-sized businesses that were, formerly sometimes treated less than kindly. We have considered the practicalities of how we can make life easier for small and medium-sized businesses – of which there are some 23 million – by reducing official procedures and abolishing administrative rules. The Commission – in the persons of Commissioner Verheugen and President Barroso – has put forward a highly intensive programme of ‘better regulation’, following a Dutch model and providing quite crucial impetus towards a 25% reduction of administrative chores. We want to make it easier for young entrepreneurs to start up businesses. The intention is that they should be able to get one up and running within a week, with a single point of contact ensuring that small businesses do not have to deal with umpteen different administrative bodies, but can start operating as quickly as possible.
I am very much obliged to the Commission for raising the de minimis threshold, which, I know, was not an entirely simple matter within their own institution. Doubling this threshold is a vitally important initiative and enables us to make life much easier for small and medium-sized businesses and also makes it easier for us to encourage and support them. I would also ask you not to forget that we, through the European Investment Bank, have made available an additional EUR 30 billion through subsidised loans, guarantees and sureties, enabling small businesses in particular to make real strides in creating jobs.
The third topic I would like to address is knowledge and research. We are perfectly well aware that one consequence of Europe’s wage levels is that we can get the better of our competitors only if we do more for training, research and knowledge. It was, of course, as long ago as 2000 that we set the 3% target. The only thing is that we have not achieved it. What is new about these conclusions is that we have got every single country, in the annex to the conclusions and which forms part of them, to commit itself to being able to actually achieve this 3% target in every year right up to 2010. My comment on the previous debate is that, if we succeed in this – and it will of course call for considerable efforts – the consequence of it will be that EUR 100 billion more per annum, drawn from the national budgets and from private industry, will be invested in research. That would be the most massive injection for growth that one can imagine in this area."@en1
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