Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-26-Speech-3-046"
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"en.20030326.5.3-046"2
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"Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, as the President-in-Office pointed out, the purpose of the spring Councils is to examine and promote the European economy. The state of war which surrounds us at present and which has been imposed on us not by the Americans, not by the American nation or the American people, but by the Bush administration, with its unilateral and arrogant policy, and by a number of European governments which took it upon themselves to split the European Union, is in danger of distracting us from our set programme.
For our part, keeping our eye firmly on the long-term programme of the European Union is not a formalistic policy, it is a way of maintaining and starting to restore the seriously damaged union of Europe. When you want unity, you do not start, nor should you start with what divides you; you start with what unites you. And however much our foreign policy divides us at the moment, our economic policy is equally well able to unite us.
If we are to achieve this truly admirable and ambitious objective, we must make the macro-economy work more efficiently, integrate the financial services market in Europe and strengthen the spirit of enterprise, research, education and the integration of the European networks. But how can we integrate the European networks when, as the President of the Commission pointed out, we only spend EUR 20 billion a year and it will take twenty years to complete the programme?
All these worthy objectives are included in the Lisbon strategy; however, we have to admit that we are in the third year and, in certain sectors such as education, for example, things are not going quite according to plan. Those who supported the Lisbon strategy for regenerating the European economy were right about one thing. Their programme, with the resources which needed to be mobilised, was a programme with a long-term return. However, we need measures which have an immediate return in the present climate, with the threat of recession hanging over the global economy, so that we can find new impetus which will allow the Lisbon strategy to proceed to its conclusion.
In order for this to happen, we need to shake off the fatal spirit of defeatism besieging us at present and regain the spirit of determination of Lisbon, even if the present, disastrous circumstances for the Union can be summed up in the words of Kipling: ‘If you can bear to see your life's work broken and stoop again, build it again with worn-out tools’. That is precisely where we stand at the moment. That is where our duty lies. If we fight for this, the day will dawn when truth will also prevail for us in Europe."@en1
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