Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-05-05-Speech-3-466"
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"en.20100505.74.3-466"2
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"Mr President, I would like to start by answering the direct question put to me by Mr Bokros. This subject was also referred to by Mr Cofferati, who is not currently present, and by Mrs del Castillo, who is also not present. Others have also referred to it.
In addition to a strategy for growth and job creation, and to coordinating economic and employment policies, we need European supervision of the financial markets. This is the supervision package that I was referring to before and on which I had a response from Mr Verhofstadt. I am delighted that he is in favour of the European Parliament adopting its position on the financial supervision package as soon as possible.
In addition to this, something that Mr Barroso particularly emphasised in his speech: we need to have an external dimension. Europe’s economic union needs to have an external dimension; a single external position, namely in the G20. I am referring to what Mr Barroso said, which I almost completely agree with.
What we also need for economic union is governance institutions: a European Council that launches the strategic lines, a Commission that monitors and executes the strategy and legislative bodies for the strategy: the Council and the European Parliament.
In addition, we need instruments to incentivise this strategy, such as the authorisation of the Structural Funds and the European funds to guide this strategy, something that did not exactly happen – or at least did not happen to a great extent – during the years of the Lisbon Strategy.
This is what I think is already taking place in the European Union: a step towards the next phase, the phase that the 21st century requires. This phase is that of globalisation, which is economic union. Not just the internal market or monetary union, but also economic union. That is the path we must follow, and we need to do it consistently, with interinstitutional dialogue, such as is happening here this afternoon, and we need to do it as swiftly as possible.
I think this is what the European people are asking of all of us.
Why did the Lisbon Strategy fail? This was the direct question asked by Mr Bokros.
I definitely believe that there are many reasons, and it would be a little excessive and arrogant to try to simplify the situation. However, if I had to choose one of those reasons to explain the lack of success of the Lisbon Strategy, I think that the most conclusive one is that the European Union – which adopted the single market at the time, which adopted a single currency – has not taken the necessary step towards economic union. That step has not been taken.
The Treaty of Maastricht talked about economic and monetary union. We have remained in monetary union and have not moved on to economic union.
This is why I believe that the Europe 2020 strategy needs to be part of a new phase for the Union, which is the step towards economic union. This economic union means, most importantly, economic and social governance of the Union.
A fundamental element of that economic union is a strategy for growth and creating high-quality employment, which is essentially the purpose of this debate. It is a debate that I have found to be very interesting and extremely rich in terms of contributions, and it also has new, important dimensions that were not part of the Lisbon Strategy or did not have the same emphasis in it. For example, the technological dimension or the social dimension that Mr Cofferati, Mr Cercas and Mr Arif mentioned, and the dimension of combating climate change, which links to what Mrs Schroedter was saying.
However, it is not possible to achieve economic union simply by having a strategy for growth and creating quality employment. That is not all. This would answer the question from Mrs Harms, who is not currently present.
In addition, we need something that Commissioner Rehn – who is going to speak next – is working on, and which I alluded to earlier. We need coordination of economic policies, employment policies and social policies, which has not happened in Europe and did not happen with the Lisbon Strategy.
It is also something that the Treaty of Lisbon requires us to do. Article 5 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union states that the Member States must, are obliged to – it is not optional – coordinate their economic policies and their employment policies. They could also, if they wanted to – and in my opinion they should – coordinate their social policies."@en1
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