Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-05-10-Speech-4-054"
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"en.20070510.5.4-054"2
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".
Mr President, I would like to begin by reminding everyone that we are, of course, working within the regulations. Within the framework of the regulations, the Commission is trying to be as innovative as possible as regards generation of new instruments that could help us better address all the challenges. We are also trying to be as flexible as the regulations will allow. We are also working within the budget, which is large for some and too small for others, but which certainly made us reach out to other sources of financing, again in order to have increased capacities to address the challenges.
However, the period in which we live requires us to do both things. On the one hand we must substantially improve our citizens’ quality of life. On the other hand we have to create the basic foundations for long-term sustainable development, for which, of course, innovation is crucial and the most important factor.
Concerning housing, the regulations are more generous with regard to poorer states, but there are still many areas in the EU-15 where we can support housing-related activities. This is especially true of the rehabilitation of public spaces in deprived inner-city areas, including security measures, and of the connection of multi-occupancy family houses to water supplies and sewage, energy and telecommunications networks. The EIB and the Council of Europe Development Bank have been important sources for financing investment in the housing sector, independently of Jessica. Within the Jessica framework we are now analysing how we can do the maximum to boost investment in housing through cheap loans and credit.
One day of the Leipzig ministerial meeting in May will be devoted to issues relating to urban areas. There will also be a Leipzig Charter on sustainable European cities. One of the paragraphs concerns the challenges that must be dealt with in relation to housing, especially in the context of energy. The Commission will submit to this meeting an analysis of future programmes, especially concerning the housing issue. I would just like to remind you that the Commission’s inter-service group working on urban issues has recently prepared an inventory of the urban dimension of Community policies. It identifies all the policies which have an impact on housing in the context of public health, energy, social policy and urban transport. That inter-service group can certainly give more prominence to housing questions in its work programme. I am still considering how we can do this, but we will commission the study that you ask for in your report. I am sure these will be very useful studies, and we are, of course, constantly trying to be more innovative. We must be more innovative in terms of financial engineering and combining different sources. We will not succeed without making such efforts.
Concerning innovation, and as regards Mr Janowski’s report, many of you stress something which I find absolutely essential, namely the broader interpretation of innovation as not merely being limited to multinationals and state-of-the-art 21st- or 22nd-century technology, but also taking small- and medium-sized companies on board. I fully share your view on this twin challenge. We need local motors and poles to take us forward quickly. However, the real challenge is to spread innovation capacities across Europe. I share your views on this very strongly. We need both poles and networks. That is why the Regions for Economic Change, the first network of its kind, which will be launched this year, concerns the linking-up of clusters all over Europe. We will have the regions working together on the question of how to bring innovation to the market as quickly as possible. As we know, Europe’s basic disease is its slowness in this area.
Once again, Mr President, thank you very much for this debate on the reports, which is a continuation of our interinstitutional discussions in this area. Both reports are extremely useful, not least with regard to future policy reflections."@en1
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