Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-05-16-Speech-2-392"
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"en.20060516.41.2-392"2
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"Madam President, I should like to thank all the Members who have spoken in this debate, referring to initiatives or positions held by the Commission.
I believe there is quite a considerable level of agreement and consensus on the diagnosis and on the main guidelines as to what the European institutions’ response should be, so that public finances and good fiscal and budgetary policies can help to produce more growth and jobs and more effectively meet European citizens’ demands.
Indeed, in recent months there has been a significant improvement in confidence and optimism among economic operators and also among European consumers. All the indicators point to that.
We are now in the process of trying to convert this confidence and optimism into real evidence of an upturn in the economic situation, with more consumption, more jobs and more economic growth. I believe we are partly succeeding, although that does not mean it is an easy task. There is of course a problem – and I agree with those who have pointed it out as one – with the low potential growth of the European economy.
The European economy by itself, without further reforms, is incapable of growing any more than the figures that we are estimating for 2006, namely slightly more than 2%. There is evidence of some extraordinarily dynamic competitors, both in other industrialised countries and in emerging countries; there is a risk, which some of you have mentioned, arising from the fluctuations in energy prices; there are global imbalances in other important areas of the world economy that may affect this phase in our growth. When we find that we have the answer to the question of what to do in this situation, we have a relatively strong consensus: good fiscal and budgetary policies, which are not pro-cyclic, which are anti-cyclic, which improve the quality of revenue and expenditure, and which contribute better to growth and skills enhancement; better operation of the internal market; use of our enormous potential as a market of 450 million consumers; and, as we have all mentioned, the need for better coordination.
Having witnessed the monthly operations of the Eurogroup and ECOFIN, I have to agree with all of you when you call on the Council, and the Eurogroup in particular, to provide more coordination. I can also tell you, however, that the Council and the Eurogroup are willing to improve their coordination and to improve the involvement of all sectors and all the institutions – including this Parliament, of course – in the dialogue needed for this coordination to set the right objectives and priorities and to be effective.
I believe we are facing a very good opportunity at this turning-point, which Mr Sánchez Presedo mentioned a few minutes ago. We must not let this opportunity slip away, and we must not fail to learn from the mistakes that Europe’s economies and the euro zone made in the previous period of economic recovery, when they failed to make use of the good periods of economic growth to consolidate public accounts and thus improve sustainability, or to use the dynamism of their economies to provide more and better jobs, which is what our citizens are demanding of us."@en1
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