Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-11-30-Speech-3-163-000"
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"en.20111130.16.3-163-000"2
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"Mr President, honourable Members, first of all I want to thank everyone for a constructive, pertinent discussion, prompted by the excellent report by Ms Berès. To finish this debate, I would like to make three comments.
Firstly, the European Commission is always ready to listen to the European Parliament, and especially when Parliament makes its voice heard in good time. I hope, with regard to the Annual Growth Survey for 2012, that the European Parliament will find a natural way to engage in debate and present its views in good time to influence the decisions, not only of the Commission, but of the Member States also. This is very important for democratic legitimacy, which the rapporteur, Ms Berès, and several others have quite reasonably and rightly pointed out this evening.
By way of example, I listened to Mr Takkula emphasising the importance of education. We cannot consider all policy areas every year, but education is indeed so important, both for competitiveness and productivity, and, ultimately, for people’s employability, that we really need to attach special importance to it, and it is good, too, to consider it in the context of this Annual Growth Survey. Education is obviously of decisive importance, not just for economic growth and employment, but also, more generally, for human development needs. In that sense, it is a very fundamental value for European society.
My second comment is addressed to Ms Hübner, who referred to the relative dearth of any comparative national monitoring system. In fact, if you read this Growth Survey for 2012 carefully, it has a section that compares Member States and one that also deals with the issue at Union level, where there is close examination of what measures have been recommended for the Member States and, furthermore, what measures all Member States should adopt to implement joint European decisions, with regard, for example, to the Services Directive or, just as importantly, to energy and trade policy. I therefore agree with you: this is also partially included here, and we will give greater weight to this dimension in future reports.
My third and final comment is this: some Members have suggested that this European semester would be a pointless, bureaucratic tool, and that we should just focus on putting out the fire and overcoming the current crisis. Of course, I agree that we really must do all we can to beat the crisis, in order to salvage the economy and employment, but, at the same time, I disagree that this European semester would be pointless in this sense – quite the contrary.
It is very important to see this European semester as an instrument to create what is needed for long-term economic growth and also, in the short-term, greater economic stability. The recommendations made this year in connection with the European semester, for example, have had an impact on the actions taken in the Member States, and, in that sense, they have already proved their worth.
To conclude, I wish to say that it is obvious that Europe’s economic growth will not get under way through over-centralisation, but by strengthening entrepreneurship, by encouraging people to develop their skills and potential for innovation, and, in general, by releasing people’s creative powers, to foster entrepreneurship and expertise and, ultimately to promote productive work. This is the precise purpose of the European semester, which is to say that it is a means for us to use both fiscal and structural policy to do what it takes to promote entrepreneurship, expertise, innovation and productive work in general, all of which will help provide a firmer basis for economic growth and employment in Europe. Consequently, therefore, this European semester is very directly linked to enhancing economic growth and, as a result, employment in Europe, and it is that which is most crucial for our citizens in the end."@en1
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