Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-03-11-Speech-2-325"
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"en.20080311.33.2-325"2
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"Madam President, in response to Mr Arnaoutakis’s question, I must say firstly that the global economy is in the process of slowing down; it is cooling down, to use climate terminology.
The financial turbulence is continuing; the US economy is in a process of marked slowdown – some think that it is on the brink of recession. Prices of raw materials, not only oil but also other raw materials, are increasing, and all this is having a negative impact on growth, although the growth of the global economy is still substantial.
The European economy is dealing relatively well with these difficulties. In our recent forecasts, presented on 21 February, we talked about 2% growth for the European Union this year, and 1.8% for the euro area. There is therefore an impact on the European economy, but the extent of it should not be exaggerated.
With regard to external trade, the most recent figures published by Eurostat show that, for 2007, the initial estimate talks about a trade deficit in the European Union of 27 of EUR 185 000 million, which is a substantial trade deficit, but in any event lower than many of the other areas of industrialised countries, and the euro area has a trade surplus of EUR 28 300 million.
Therefore, in a global economy characterised by major imbalances, our external sector is balanced in general, and not only our external sector, but our public accounts are also basically balanced.
Third point: the best way of dealing with the crisis in the global economy is to maintain the structural reforms and macroeconomic policies that have enabled us to get our public accounts back on track, improve the stability of our economies, improve our capacity for growth and be in a better position than before to face up to financial turbulence.
Fourthly, there are specific problems to deal with as a result of this turbulence. We discussed these in the previous debate, so I am not going to repeat them. I will, however, remind the Member and the House that there are roadmaps adopted by the Ecofin Council in October that establish how to react to this financial turbulence.
Fifthly, I would also like to remind the Member and Parliament that in October 2006 we adopted a strategy for the EU’s external economic action, the Global Europe programme, which establishes a new European trade policy to improve our external competitiveness, with strategies relating to market access, protecting intellectual property rights, open public procurement abroad, trade defence instruments, a policy of not just multilateral agreements in the context of the World Trade Organization, but also a new generation of bilateral trade agreements that complement the efforts to move forward in the multilateral negotiations in the Doha Round.
To conclude this answer, I would like to say that the facts show, in particular for European economies, that market integration, globalisation and liberalisation of trade are beneficial to our economies and bring many more benefits than disadvantages or problems. Globalisation and, in the European context, the single market, are essential tools for improving our competitiveness and, as Europeans know very well, probably better than anyone else in the world, protectionism is not the solution."@en1
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