Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-30-Speech-4-047"
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"en.20061130.6.4-047"2
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".
Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, we are currently debating a report that is going to be voted on this morning and which deals jointly with a number of reports presented by the Commission with one fundamental and very well defined objective, which is no less than to establish a range of measures enabling us to develop a knowledge-based society and economy in Europe, which is ultimately the fundamental instrument for generating employment and growth and therefore prosperity for all Europeans.
In this report, like other reports by experts, such as the Aho report, which is an extremely complete and precise report dealing with the same issues, or other previous Commission reports, we are being presented with a situation in which we have a very good diagnosis ― I would say ― of where we are, why we are in this situation and what we need. There is probably no other area in which we have such precise knowledge as in this one, allowing us to promote growth in Europe.
We have a diagnosis and we also have the solutions. We all know that in order to promote a knowledge-based society we need to promote innovation. We all know that we need to promote training so that people can adapt to all the changing situations in employment and can recycle themselves and find new kinds of work. We all know that innovation is necessary so that the social welfare system does not lose its capacity to meet the citizens' needs in terms of health, training, etc. We all know, too, that companies need a favourable framework, a framework that helps them, that encourages them to develop innovation and that prevents them from having to deal with bureaucratic problems, with difficulties in a whole range of fields of action.
This is not the time to list each of the aspects of the report, because they are there and you all know about them. I would like to take this opportunity to place as much emphasis as I can on the need to stop all the talk once and for all and to stop giving reports and analyses wonderful titles, while there is still a degree of paralysis in the national States' actions. The step that has been taken in relation to the 25 national reform programmes is important, but I believe that we should place extremely great emphasis on a very thorough assessment of the progress made with those national programmes.
As time passes, we are being left further and further behind. When the Lisbon Agenda was drawn up, there were expectations in terms of how things would develop. At the half-way point in the implementation of the Lisbon Agenda, the European average — the situations vary from country to country, of course — was worse than when the Lisbon Agenda was drawn up. We may find that in 2010 we have still failed to make any progress and that we have therefore got further and further behind. I truly believe that if we were to hire an external auditor, they would be amazed to see what a good diagnosis we have, and what good remedies and solutions we have, but that, in spite of that, there has been such a complete lack of action in their application.
Like life itself, societies are created by means of cooperation amongst different generations. One generation carries the baton; it is like a relay race, but it is our foundations that are being passed on. Many Europeans are currently growing up and being born. Others, like ourselves, will be retired before too long. All of us need a society in which Europe can continue to have that capacity to compete, to have the leadership and sense of future that it has had in the past, because Europeans used to be determined, with their hearts and souls, to leave a better legacy for the future of their countries and, in our case, for the future of all of the countries making up European society.
That is our responsibility, therefore, and we must put our hearts and souls into it."@en1
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