Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-14-Speech-3-291"
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"en.20070214.22.3-291"2
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".
Mr President, with your permission, I shall speak in my mother tongue.
Some people describe the budgetary policies as restrictive and accuse the Stability and Growth Pact of slowing down economic growth, but the reality is that it is the countries with the best budgetary accounts, with budget surpluses, both in the euro zone and in the European Union as a whole, that for some time have been experiencing the highest levels of economic growth. The truth is that fiscal consolidation makes progress and improves in parallel with the increase and improvement in our growth and job creation figures.
There has recently been a lot of talk about the strength of the euro against the dollar and the yen being an obstacle to our exports, but the fact is that the euro zone’s trade balance, in relation to the United States, has improved again in 2006 and that the rise in oil prices has partly been compensated for by the rise in the value of the euro against the dollar.
In short, ladies and gentlemen, the improvement in our economies and the acceleration of job creation are clear evidence that the European social and economic model, with its high level of social protection and its environmental demands, is perfectly compatible with the globalisation of the economy and with economic growth. Europe, its countries, our economies, have always worked better when they have opened up to the world and, now that the global economy is undergoing an unprecedented expansion, Europe and its citizens have much to gain from this opening up of our borders and the increased integration of our economies at global level.
Sending this message to the citizens is not just a way to vindicate the economic and social policies that we have been advocating over recent years: it is crucial in terms of increasing confidence in Europe's capacity to provide the European citizens with well-being and offers us a solid basis for strengthening the political will necessary in order to move ahead with the structural reforms laid down in the Lisbon Strategy.
The second point on which there is fundamental agreement between the reports we are debating today and the opinion of the European Commission is the need to enhance the reforms initiated through the implementation of national reform plans by the Member States. In this regard, the dynamism of the emerging economies, the ageing of the population, the growth potential, which is still low, in many European economies, the continuing budgetary imbalances in certain Member States, the low growth in productivity and the segmentation of the labour market are some of the very powerful reasons for continuing to implement policies leading to greater innovation capacity, greater life-long training opportunities, better functioning of the markets and healthier public finances.
The third significant area of agreement between Parliament and the Commission relates to the need to act not just in each of the Member States, but also at European level, in order to make progress on achieving an internal market in sectors that are crucial to our economy, such as the energy sector and the financial services sector, in order to increase support for innovation, in order to create a more favourable environment for business activity and greater adaptability of the markets in products and services and of the labour market.
Of these priority areas for action at European level, the reports rightly place the emphasis on the issue of energy, which will be one of the key issues at the Spring European Council, which is going to debate the energy package proposed by the Commission on 10 January. The degree of commitment and ambition demonstrated by the Heads of State or Government in terms of creating a genuine common energy policy will be decisive when it comes to assessing whether the response to the challenge of guaranteeing our energy supply, while at the same time tackling climate change, is credible. When it comes to tackling these challenges, action by each of the Member States separately will clearly be insufficient and joint action at European level will therefore be required in order to defend the interests of the citizens properly.
Finally, both the report by Mr Bullmann and the report by Mr Andersson express the need for Parliament to be able to exercise its prerogatives properly when it comes to revising the integrated guidelines of the Lisbon Strategy, which is scheduled for next year. I can assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that the Commission is fully committed, particularly those of us in the College who are directly involved with the Lisbon Strategy, Vice-President Verheugen, Commissioner Špidla and myself, and we have a common desire to explore all possible ways to involve Parliament effectively in this revision.
I shall end, Mr President, by expressing my desire for this plenary to endorse the practically unanimous support of the respective committees for the reports by Mr Bullmann and Mr Andersson. Through this support and through the high degree of consensus between Parliament and the Commission, we will be sending a clear signal to the European Council and to the citizens in general of the European Union's will and capacity to create a specific instrument to tackle the risks and take advantage of the opportunities presented by globalisation, while defending and enhancing Europe's economic progress and social cohesion.
Ladies and gentlemen, today we are debating jointly the report by Mr Bullmann, on the broad economic policy guidelines, and the report by Mr Andersson, on the guidelines for the employment policies of the Member States.
Both reports are based on last December’s Commission Communication on the implementation by the Member States of the renewed Lisbon Strategy for growth and employment, and the integrated guidelines for 2005-2008, which was approved by the Council following consultation of this Parliament and on the proposal of the Commission.
Today's debate is taking place during the weeks leading up to the Spring European Council of 8 March and involves cooperating in the preparations for that Council. Just this morning, this Parliament adopted a resolution expressing this Parliament’s assessment of the implementation to date of the renewed Lisbon Strategy and stressing the areas and policies in which decisive action by the Member States and the European Union is needed.
It is important to stress that the reports that we are debating today and the opinion of this Parliament and of the European Commission are in agreement on a series of fundamental points. Firstly, both Parliament and the Commission acknowledge the results that we are beginning to see, both in terms of economic growth and in terms of employment, thanks to the application of the policies agreed within the renewed framework of the Lisbon Strategy and thanks in particular to the budgetary consolidation and structural reform efforts made by the majority of Member States.
Just yesterday, Eurostat published the European Union’s GDP growth figures for the fourth quarter of 2006. That information indicates that the joint growth for 2006 was practically 3%. That would represent the highest rhythm of increase in our GDP since the Lisbon Strategy was launched in 2000.
Although Parliament and the Commission are in agreement, we must nevertheless be sure to emphasise this point, to emphasise the fact that we are beginning to see the positive results of the strategies implemented a few years ago. It is important that the citizens receive the message that the efforts made since the Stability and Growth Pact was implemented, since the Lisbon Strategy was implemented – efforts that have not always been easy to accept or understand – are yielding fruit and helping to strengthen the European social model within the context of globalisation.
Many of the difficulties faced by the European project in terms of public opinion over recent times result from the fear amongst the citizens, in certain sectors of our society, that globalisation is lowering standards in a way that undermines the foundations of our social model, and that the European Union and the policies and strategies decided upon here are unable to prevent it. Some people even accuse the European Union of provoking and speeding up that deterioration of the European social model.
The results we are seeing demonstrate clearly that that is not the case. Those people who believe that Europe has become stagnant and that the rigidity of the labour markets is preventing job creation are also wrong. The figures show that, since the euro was created on 1 January 1999, eight years ago now, the European Union has created four times as many jobs as it had created over the previous eight years. Furthermore, during this decade, since the Lisbon Strategy was launched, the European Union has clearly been creating more jobs than the United States."@en1
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