Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-20-Speech-3-033"
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"en.20021120.1.3-033"2
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"Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, in 2003, the Commission’s work programme, and even the political work of the entire Union, will be heavily dependent on the world economic environment. For now, there is no reason to be optimistic. According to the Commission, the indicators continue to point to an acceleration in growth at the end of 2002. This acceleration, however, will not exceed 1%, which means, and I quote, that a rate of growth of around 3% therefore seems impossible to achieve for 2003.
The risk of a stock market crash, the impact of terrorism and the threat of war have significantly marked the world economy. We could adopt a dogmatic stance in response to this situation, superstitiously chanting ‘stability, stability’. We could also aim for a more pragmatic economic policy by giving growth a boost. That is what the US Government has done, injecting more than USD 100 billion into the economy in one year. That is what the Federal Reserve has done through its policy of lowering interest rates.
For us, as socialists, stability is important. We must fight against public debt and for a balanced budget. The right has attacked the German Government for this, pretending to forget that right-wing governments in Portugal, Italy and in particular France, are moving ever further from the stability policy. The socialists, however, advocate a proactive policy in favour of growth and employment, because in politics chanting has never produced results. Now is the time to relaunch trans-European networks and use all available appropriations to foster productive investment, research and the knowledge-based economy. It is truly scandalous to see that the Commission was incapable of using all the available appropriations in 2001. Even though the Union budget is just 1% of the Community gross domestic product, 16% of these scant appropriations were unused, in other words, saved.
Mr President, I shall end by saying that the Union set itself an ambitious strategy at the Lisbon Summit, and we must provide ourselves with the means to fulfil that ambition."@en1
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