Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-21-Speech-4-035"
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"en.20080221.3.4-035"2
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"Mr President, first of all I would like to congratulate both rapporteurs. Mr Guellec’s report highlights the fact that, while there is economic convergence occurring between Member States, there is also a widening of regional and local disparities.
That situation goes to the very heart of cohesion policy and clearly indicates the need to include a significant territorial dimension in all policies, but particularly in the Lisbon Strategy. I have seen this situation occurring in my own country, Ireland, where convergence with the EU average has been achieved – indeed surpassed – but where the economic gap between different regions is widening. It is extremely important that this gap does not continue to widen, and one of the ways of ensuring this is to increase investment in innovation, research and development in those regions that are lagging behind.
I want to thank Mr Guellec for including my suggestion on the importance of social capital in boosting regional economic growth. We are all aware of the role played by physical capital, natural capital and human capital as the basis for economic growth and development. However, social capital, which is the latent resource residing within and among cooperating groups, provides the added value. Data from the UN Handbook, which relates to a very significant number of countries, indicates that the contribution of social capital to economic growth is in the order of 5% of GDP.
Finally, in response to the comment by Mr Clark, who suggests we should have ‘trade not aid’, I would say that in the EU we manage both – trade via the single market and targeted aid where needed. That is the best of both worlds."@en1
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