Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-03-12-Speech-3-009"
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"Mr President, traditionally, the Spring European Council is the time when we review the Lisbon Strategy for growth and jobs, and this meeting will be more important than most. I would like to start by thanking the Slovenian Presidency for the very careful preparation of this spring summit.
But the Lisbon Strategy is not a static process. Far from it. The Commission Strategic Report sets out a series of new policy initiatives to make Europe even more resilient to economic turmoil, and to reinforce European efforts to shape and fully benefit from globalisation.
First, the most important area. The most important area is people. The key to overcoming poverty and inequality is driving up standards of education and training throughout the Union, making sure they are available to all. We have chosen to focus on one of the most vulnerable groups: early school-leavers. Today in Europe, one in six young people still leaves school without qualifications. One in five 15-year-olds does not have adequate reading skills. We cannot afford to allow their talents to go to waste. We must give young people the skills they need to realise their potential.
Another key pillar of the Lisbon Strategy we have returned to is research and innovation. To keep investment coming in, Europe must increase its relative attractiveness. We need a fifth freedom in Europe – the free movement of knowledge – to complement the other four freedoms on which the single market rests. We need to support open innovation but at the same time we need to ensure that knowledge is suitably protected by European patents and copyright.
Here I would like to welcome the adoption of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology yesterday by this House. This is a crucial moment for Europe. I would like to congratulate the European Parliament on this achievement and to thank you for the support you have given to my proposal, which I remember met with so much resistance when I put it forward three years ago. But, thanks to the good cooperation between Parliament and the Commission and the Member States, at the end we have got that agreement.
The third priority we have looked at is the business environment. We need a single market that works for Europe and in particular for SMEs, which are the backbone of our economy and the place where most jobs are created. That is why I will be asking the European Council tomorrow to endorse the idea of a Small Business Act to remove the impediments to the creation and the growth of SMEs. We have to keep in mind that the most important thing we can give to SMEs is a real internal market. This is the main difference between Europe and the United States of America, when it comes to SMEs, not because of specific legislation. A small company in the United States can start in one state but can immediately reach the entire internal market of the United States. In Europe it is still not like that. In Europe there are a lot of barriers in practical terms in going from one country to the next. So we really need to complete the internal market if we want to develop SMEs and if you want more growth and more employment in Europe.
The final Lisbon pillar we have revisited in our strategic report is energy and climate change, the defining challenge of our generation. It may be early days for the energy and climate package. But, as this House knows well, the momentum cannot be allowed to slip. The timing of an agreement is critical to its success. The earlier it comes, the lower the cost of adjustment, the bigger the benefits for early movers. And it is crucial to our number one goal: agreeing a comprehensive international agreement in Copenhagen next year. The more countries are involved and the closer their ambitions are to ours, the more we will have a level playing field. Nothing will bring this closer than the European Union showing that it means business by reaching agreement by the end of this year.
So I am really determined – the Commission is really determined – to work with the Member States so that we can have a basic political agreement on the energy internal market and on the climate protection and renewables package by the end of this year. Of course, we would also like to have the final legislative process concluded with the European Parliament at the beginning of next year.
It is of course important to link the climate protection strategy with the internal market for energy. We all know this is essential for our vision of competitive, secure and sustainable energy for Europe. I have been glad to see this dossier accelerating over the past weeks, and we are committed to finding ways of ensuring that the genuine market opening targeted in our original proposals is realised. The Commission remains fully committed to the realisation of ownership unbundling or its functional equivalent. The efforts of this House to be ready for a first reading by June are central.
Reform is not about rolling back valuable social advances or our social market economy; it is about equipping people to succeed in times of change, giving them the chance to take control of their own lives.
Whatever other messages come out of the European Council this week, one should be clear: the Lisbon Strategy is working. No fewer than 6.5 million jobs have been created in the European Union in the last two years. Unemployment is at its lowest level for 25 years. The employment rate stands at 66%, getting close to the Lisbon target of 70%. What is more, job creation has gone hand in hand with productivity improvements. Productivity is now growing faster in the European Union than in the United States. These are no mean achievements.
It is about modernising our social systems and securing their sustainability. Access, opportunity and solidarity must be the watchwords and will be at the heart of the renewed social agenda that the Commission will present before summer.
It is about a dynamic business environment where entrepreneurs are spending their time and resources on producing high-quality goods and services that people from all over the world want to buy, not on filling in unnecessary forms and having to battle every day against red tape.
It is also about transforming Europe into a low-carbon economy that is good for the environment and good for business. An economy that provides rising living standards but which does not cost the earth.
I am glad to see that the hard work of the last few years on the revamped Lisbon Agenda has helped foster a broad consensus on where we stand and where we want to go. This House has been a consistent source of critical support, and I want to thank you for this.
I was pleased to note the large degree of support for the Lisbon Strategy expressed in the European Parliament’s resolution of 20 February on the input for the 2008 Spring Council.
I have also seen the amendments that this House voted the same day to the broad economic policy guidelines. I agree with the issues you emphasise, and indeed they are already part and parcel of European Union policies on the basis of proposals from the European Commission: social inclusion, sustainability of public finance, the need to fight inflation, R&D, improved economic policy coordination, the promotion of entrepreneurship and innovation, the external dimension of the internal market, and climate change and energy. So let us be clear: the Commission agrees with these priorities.
After consulting with various stakeholders, including the Member States, the Commission proposed in December to keep the guidelines of the strategy as they were, given their inbuilt flexibility, which allows adaptation to the evolving circumstances and accommodation of the priorities I have just cited and which the Commission endorses.
Keeping the guidelines sends a much-needed signal of stability and predictability to Member States and economic operators alike and, in doing so, reinforces the likelihood of delivery. As the Presidency of the Council just stated, the priority now is delivery. We have to deliver concrete results and we have to show consistency. This being said, after contacts with Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, the Commission tried to broker a compromise with the Council, suggesting adaptations to the narrative document accompanying the guidelines to reflect the issues highlighted by Parliament. In spite of the efforts of the Commission, the Council decided not to follow our compromise suggestion on the broad economic policy guidelines.
Anyway, I would like to reassure this House of the utmost importance that the Commission attaches to setting the right framework for Member States to deliver on our shared priorities – and the priorities are growth and jobs. When I say growth, it is growth that is sustainable from a social and environmental point of view. And jobs that are not only increasing in numbers but also in quality. Because we are sure that the renewed Lisbon Strategy focusing on jobs and growth, with its commitment to competitiveness and inclusiveness, is Europe’s best response to the challenges of globalisation.
Of course, the Lisbon process cannot shield us from negative economic developments whose origin lies outside Europe. In today’s inter-connected economy, that is impossible. We have had to trim our growth forecasts slightly for this year but we are still predicting growth of 2% – a very respectable performance.
The reforms already carried out have made our economies more resilient and flexible. This has left us better able to cope with external shocks.
Of course when conditions deteriorate it becomes all the more important to reassure those that feel threatened by an economic downturn. Europe needs to protect – but it must avoid the temptation of becoming protectionist.
A retreat into protectionism would be madness. Europe has been a huge winner from globalisation. With just 7% of the world’s population, Europe accounts for 30% of economic output. We account for seven of the ten most competitive nations in the world and, despite the rise of China and India, Europe remains the world’s largest trading power.
So Europe has every reason to approach the future with confidence. At the same time, we need to remain vigilant and cautious as to further developments. But our general line should be one of confidence. It will not be with pessimism that we will win the next economic battles.
This is what has inspired our reaction to the financial turmoil and our policy papers on the financial situation and on sovereign wealth funds, which are also on the table of the European Council. And we hope the European Council will support our proposals for a common European response to these challenges.
When I say that the Lisbon Strategy is working – and indeed it is – this does not mean that all is rosy and that we can rest on our laurels. I have said, and the Commission has said, time and time again, there is no room for complacency, especially when the economic situation seems to be deteriorating globally. A lot has to be done. In many regions of Europe unemployment remains a serious problem. There are special social categories that are very much affected. Rising energy and food prices are fuelling inflation, eating into the purchasing power, especially of those who depend on salaries and pensions for their income. So we need to continue our efforts."@en1
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