Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-25-Speech-3-070"
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"en.20090325.2.3-070"2
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"Mr President, let me make a brief summary from the perspective of the Council and the Czech Presidency.
I think we have now reached a kind of notional half time in the Czech presidency and I would like to thank those of you – and you are not few in number - who have shown your appreciation for our work to date. It is of course gratifying to have a show of respect for the constant work - seven days a week and 20 hours a day - and for what we achieved at the European Council last week. The decisions we took there were fundamental and important. I would like to say one thing to those of you who have specific doubts and questions. Give those measures and those decisions time to work, let them prove themselves once they come into operation, because I firmly believe that they have their strengths, they have their scope and they will pay dividends as we grapple with the worst economic crisis ever to afflict the EU.
The actual decisions on the EUR 5 billion for energy projects and broadband Internet are important. They are important in the context of the gas crisis because we are showing here that the EU is capable of acting quickly and responding to the needs of many European countries. The decision on the EUR 25 billion for increasing the limit in order to assist EU countries that are experiencing problems is also highly important. The decision on the EUR 75 billion that we are taking to the G20 meeting in London also gives a clear signal that the EU is prepared to take its share of responsibility regarding the reform of global financial institutions. I would also like to emphasise something that has been mentioned by some of you outside the context of the European Council meeting, and that is the intensive work which has been going on over recent weeks on a number of legislative proposals. This did not happen by chance, but thanks to the constant work of the Council under the leadership of the Czech Presidency, we have managed to reach agreement in the trialogues on quite fundamental reform proposals. The energy package on the internal energy market for gas and electricity, the aviation package on revising the Single European Sky, the roads package modernising access to the road transport market including the sensitive issue of cabotage, the roaming regulation and finally also the pesticide package as well may be the concrete results of the work of the past two to three months. I would also like to thank the European Parliament here, because this has been a joint effort between us, the Commission and the European Parliament.
Another example: negotiations have been going on for 10 years without producing any results whatsoever on reducing VAT rates for some sectors involving highly demanding manual work or a high proportion of manual work. It was only under the leadership of the Czech finance minister in Ecofin that an agreement was reached and confirmed at the European Council. Many of you ask how we will tackle the problem of unemployment. I would like to emphasise once again what our Prime Minister has already stated here: an agreement is in place between the Presidency and the Commission and on 7 May a job summit will take place under the format agreed on at the European Council. The summit will put forward concrete measures for the June European Council. This means there will be further talks.
Many of your comments were concerned with the issue of EU openness. I would like to emphasise that under our presidency, on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the EU’s major expansion, a conference called ‘Five Years Later’ was held in Prague in cooperation with the European Commission. The conference clearly demonstrated in actual figures compiled by economics experts that the expansion was perhaps the most successful project ever in the modern history of the EU and that these five years show clearly that it has been a benefit both for old and new Member States.
The Eastern Partnership: we have agreed on a declaration that the founding summit will take place on 7 May and we are working with its future members, such as Ukraine, in order to make it a genuine success for the EU. Finally, a further example of successful work was the Monday conference on the gas infrastructure which took place thanks to the European Commission in Brussels and which resulted in a declaration on the modernisation of gas infrastructure in Ukraine in order to prevent the future reoccurrence of a crisis such as the one in January this year.
I would like to reassure those of you who have any doubts concerning a certain matter. Yes, we do have domestic problems and we know full well who initiated the confidence motion. It was Jiří Paroubek, leader of the Czech social democrats. However, we are a responsible government, we are dealing with the situation and there is no cause for concern. The Czech Presidency at its half-way point can state with certainty that its second half will be just as good as the first and just as responsible and in the end we will undoubtedly be celebrating the same successes as you have spoken of here today in the context of assessing the work of January, February and March. In this way I would like to reassure you that we have a serious and responsible approach and there is absolutely no cause for concern."@en1
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