Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-13-Speech-3-223"
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".
Mr President, I am going to try to quickly mention most of the issues raised and I would firstly like to thank Mr Trentin for his report. It is a good contribution to the broad economic policy guidelines which we are going to discuss and I believe that, in accordance with our fundamental concerns, the report focuses on two objectives: one short-term objective; how to consolidate the emerging recovery and turn it into a lasting growth in Europe; and secondly, how to deal with our problems of growth potential and make progress with the Lisbon objectives, an issue which is particularly attractive at this time, immediately before the Barcelona Summit.
Safety in employment must be based on training and qualification, and this is a fundamental active element for everybody. Safety in work based solely and exclusively on rigid protection legislation may be an advantage in the short term, but there is no doubt whatsoever that it hinders modernisation and greater economic efficiency.
As the Resolution stresses, employment is not just a problem of wage costs, but it is also a problem of wage structures which are well suited to the productivity differentials in each sector of activity.
In our report we also refer to goods and services, and your Resolution also stresses the importance of integrated networks of transport and services infrastructures, as well as the need for rigorous competition policy and proposes that consumers be offered the possibility of choosing between different networks of services.
The Commission absolutely agrees with these contributions and we also point to the need to make progress in investment in priority infrastructure projects, an issue which we consider to be fundamental in order to stimulate our capacity for long-term growth.
In our recent report on the application of the broad economic policy guidelines for 2001, we point out that in some network industries, the older operators still maintain high market quotas, an indicator that the opening up of the market is still not as desired. Therefore, it is essential to make progress in order to have more robust competition which will finally benefit the citizens.
A final particularly important point has been mentioned by Mr Trentin, and also by some others, and involves the need to pay more attention to the knowledge economy.
Your Resolution stresses the need to attach more importance to R+D. It is true that R+D is an essential factor for a sustainable increase in productivity and competitiveness, which are essential elements if we want to achieve the Lisbon objective of making our economy the most competitive economy in the world. And it is true that progress has been made with R+D, but it is also true that progress in the financial contribution is taking place essentially in the public sector, although the greatest differences in terms of investment in this type of activity arise in the private sector. This is undoubtedly a point which warrants attention. I hope some conclusion in this respect will emerge from Lisbon and we will have to work to try to improve this situation, just as I believe we should work to make progress with the Community patent, an essential element for technological innovation.
Mr Trentin has mentioned other elements connected to the participation of national parliaments. Nothing would please the Commission more than greater participation by national parliaments in this type of debate and you as a Parliament, and in particular the IMAC, have played an important role in the past in support of certain initiatives of this type, which have undoubtedly been enormously useful.
I will end by saying that the Commission considers at this time that the broad economic policy guidelines, the basic document on guidelines, must continue to function in accordance with what was agreed in Lisbon, and in this regard it is absolutely essential to accept any contribution that the European Parliament may present in order to improve these guidelines. Your contributions, together with the debates which are going to come out of Lisbon, will be fundamental elements for defining our document, which will be presented, as usual, in April, so that it may be debated in the subsequent months.
I agree with the view of some of you that our difficulties did not begin with 11 September. We were already in a situation of less economic growth and I also share the view that the impact of the evolution of the American economy has been greater than we initially expected, but I believe we should acknowledge that the Union’s action in terms of economic policy during this period has been correct. The monetary authorities have taken advantage of the lower risk in the field of price stability in order to cut interest rates, and budgetary policies have supported the activity by means of the functioning of automatic stabilisers and tax reductions which have taken place during this period.
I do not share the view that we have had a procyclic policy. We only have to look at the impact the automatic stabilisers have had in Europe in percentage terms.
Good handling of macroeconomic policy is allowing us to achieve good results. I believe that we can now say that the slow-down reached its worst during the last six months of the year and that the main indicators demonstrate that we are starting a recovery. We are currently working on the round of forecasts for 2002 and I can point out that, according to those forecasts, growth has been gaining momentum throughout this year and we believe it will come close to potential growth and may even exceed it by the end of the year.
However, there are two elements of particular interest to us: firstly, the trend in salaries, which has been extremely helpful during this period – both in terms of stabilising prices and creating employment – and we hope the same trend will continue.
Secondly, the need to take advantage of recovery for budgetary consolidation. We believe that this is a fundamental element. The difficulties we have had to face during recent months have basically stemmed from not having achieved a situation of budgetary balance or budgetary surplus during the previous improvement in our economic context. And in this respect it should not be inferred from my comments – which some speakers have referred to – that I had any intention whatsoever of entering into an internal political debate, but that I simply wanted to point out something that I have said many times and that is that, in my opinion, any reduction in taxes to confront our budgetary obligations must be based on budgetary surpluses or must be counterbalanced by spending reductions. That is all I have said, I have said it many times and I am saying it again, but I do not believe it is the only thing coherent with our budgetary commitments.
Where must we go in the long term? The answer is unquestionably to increase our growth potential, that is to say, to implement Lisbon. And those are the objectives we are also going to find again in the broad economic policy guidelines.
How can we increase our production potential? In the report which the Commission has sent to Lisbon, we suggest some of the challenges we consider fundamental. It is true that Lisbon is a programme for ten years. We are currently considering what we must do over the next twelve months and, in this respect, we must define certain priorities which we consider essential to the labour market. Mr Trentin has mentioned this issue and in his motion for a resolution he stresses the importance of continuous training, mobility, flexibility and safety, as well as the non-wage costs of the workforce, above all at the lowest end of the scale.
I completely agree with each of these points. However, I would like to add one point. I believe we also have to consider that work must be worthwhile; we must have a system which provides incentives for participation in work and, to this end, it is essential to modernise the tax systems and also the social construction systems, as well as the legislation on work protection in order to favour employment. I believe that we must avoid unemployment traps which clearly have a negative impact on our situation."@en1
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