Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-07-02-Speech-1-231-000"
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"en.20120702.25.1-231-000"2
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"Mr President, I must admit that this topic is very close to my heart because in my former political life, when we regained independence in our country, this was a major element in our economic policy – to attract foreign direct investments. And we were quite successful in this.
The main areas currently considered for further action are: access to finance, improvement of the single market, industrial innovation and globalisation challenges for EU industry and small- and medium-sized enterprises. The Commission’s policy approach takes the same starting point as Parliament’s report and we also identify the same areas where action is needed.
As regards some of the concrete proposals in Parliament’s report, I note, in particular, the call for a European observatory for foreign direct investment and the urge for improved international regulatory cooperation. These are areas where work is already being done.
Over the past years, the European Commission has developed several regulatory dialogues with our major trading partners and we have projects for the exchange of good practice among Member States as concerns foreign direct investment promotion. I cannot go through all the details of this detailed Parliament report here, but I welcome the broad approach of the report and the many areas for constructive cooperation ahead.
We started today’s sitting with a discussion on the development of a single European railway area; this is one thing that shows that when we develop good infrastructure, we attract investments.
You have, on various occasions, discussed the Single Market Act and will continue to discuss the next proposal. One of the most important aspects of this is to attract foreign direct investment. Therefore, everything is in our hands.
The Commission welcomes the report on the attractiveness of investing in Europe and thanks Ms Kratsa-Tsagaropoulou for her work.
In the current economic climate, we need to create the necessary conditions to offer our companies and citizens the best possible business environment to produce and to compete in Europe.
It is true that the rise of emerging economies has intensified competition, but it has also created new opportunities for the EU through trade and investment in international value chains. Foreign direct investment is an important part of this.
The EU is the world’s leading host of foreign direct investment, attracting investments worth EUR 225 billion from the rest of the world in 2011 alone. However, the EU’s share of the world’s inward foreign direct investment has declined substantially – from 45% in 2001 to 23% in 2010. A detailed breakdown by country reveals that the decline in foreign direct investment has been highly uneven across Member States.
This means that we cannot relax, but we should rather continue to improve our framework conditions in order to keep our good international position. It also suggests that we can learn from each other in Europe as regards best practice if we wish to attract foreign investments.
And basically, we know what attracts foreign direct investment. The main reasons the EU is still an attractive location for foreign direct investment is our highly-educated workforce, low foreign direct investment regulations, declining regulatory burdens for starting and elaborating a business, extensive investor protection laws, high-quality investment promotion agencies and various support measures often linked to regional policy measures. Other important factors include a high level of productivity and technological infrastructure such as research and development and ICT endowment.
I am pleased to see that these issues are all addressed in Parliament’s report. As a continuation along these lines, the Commission is now preparing a communication on industrial policy. The long-term goals of our flagship product, Europe 2020, remain fully valid.
We have made very good progress in the deployment of industrial policy agreed in 2010. We will continue to push harder to establish the appropriate framework conditions to release the creative capacity of European industry."@en1
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