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"Mr President, let me first thank Parliament for taking up my suggestion to make the interinstitutional dialogue on the Commission’s work programme a more political exercise with the involvement of the political groups, the plenary and the committees. I think this has been given a good start with your speeches so far. This debate means that Parliament is involved early, because the programme does not exist yet, so we are taking this as input into our discussion and we will take your suggestions on board. On the other hand, to be credible and to have a real impact, the demands from Parliament to the Commission must remain focused, and this is particularly true for 2009. On different sides of the House you have different views on how we should prioritise over the next year. I hope most of us can agree that we must work together to forge a positive agenda for 2009, concentrated on the essentials. I think we must only consider initiatives that can really make a difference. In addition to choosing our proposals carefully, we need to communicate them well, so that European citizens can make a fair judgement on what the EU does and can do for them. So I am grateful for this debate at the very moment when we are preparing the programme. We intend to adopt it next month and to present it in plenary with the whole college present on 19 November. I have taken good note of your views, and you can be sure that they will help us to build a work programme with concrete initiatives bringing tangible, concrete change for European citizens. This year’s work programme will be the last one of this Commission, and it has been prepared under very special and specific circumstances: the follow-up to the war in Georgia, the situation in our neighbourhood, the uncertainties surrounding the Lisbon Treaty after the Irish ‘no’, the escalation of fuel and commodity prices, the increase in food prices, inflation threatening purchasing power and, last but not least – and you have all mentioned it – the financial crisis affecting banks and other credit institutions. I will not need to remind you that what we do in the first half of next year will also set the scene for the European elections. This is why, in our presentation of the annual policy strategy last year, we underlined our intention to stick to our ambition of delivering a Europe of results and bringing concrete benefits to citizens. The main policy priorities which the Barroso Commission envisaged for next year are still structured around five pillars, but the circumstances are different and we are facing new and urgent questions. The first pillar is promoting sustainable growth and jobs. More than ever we need to address today’s concerns: what we can do to boost growth, jobs and social stability in a period of growing inflation; what we can do to improve financial stability, building on and reinforcing the instruments available to the Union – and available to the Commission as well, which is an important discussion. As you know, the financial crisis is at the top of our agenda every week too, and we have established a kind of road map, but we have also discussed the preparation of a proposal on capital requirements for banks to tighten existing rules; we are also preparing a proposal to regulate rating agencies, which, as you know, played a very important role in the financial markets and in this crisis as well. Of course, we think that well-thought-through proposals also play a very important role in ensuring that we can deal with the effects of the financial crisis. So we are active, and will continue to be active. Another concern is what we can do to respond to the rise in oil, food and commodities prices. Our job is not day-to-day micro-management but, in a single market, we need to look carefully at how we can bring long-term stability into the financial system. That is the first pillar. The second major effort will be put into promoting the transition to a low-emission and resource-efficient economy. The Copenhagen meeting will be a major global rendezvous with a view to reaching a global climate-change agreement for post-2012/post-Kyoto. Europe must prepare its ground well and also maintain its role as a pioneer on climate change; we will also need to pursue work on how to assist with adapting to the impact of climate change so that we can be the leaders in development of smart growth. The third pillar has to do with a common immigration policy. We want to make a reality of a common immigration policy, following up on our communication in June, as well as to work on a pact on immigration, and we will need to move from pacts to acts if we are to make this a reality. The fourth pillar is how to focus our intentions on delivering policies that put our citizens first. The revised social agenda and the EU health strategy will also guide our action in this area, as well as the question of how we can further strengthen the rights of consumers. Finally, we will pursue our objective of consolidating the role of Europe as a global partner. On the external front, the challenges for 2009 are well known: the enlargement process, relations with our neighbourhood, the fate of the Doha negotiations, improving our record on development assistance and establishing full cooperation with the new US Administration."@en1
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