Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-05-04-Speech-2-164"
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"en.20040504.8.2-164"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, enlargement has been a turning-point in Europe’s history, and we have experienced it at first hand. Enlargement took place against a backdrop of uncertainties about the international situation, security problems, and problems with the preservation of social and environmental models common to us all. All of these are urgent issues that we must address.
Although enlargement has a political vocation, it must also be a source of impetus and growth. We all want the EU to prosper for the sake of its 450 million consumers; we all want a dynamic EU, one founded upon solidarity. If we are to have one, we must do everything possible to encourage sustainable growth through performance and competitiveness, which presupposes action on several different fronts. It presupposes that we sustain and promote our successful businesses, our centres of excellence and develop our high-tech industries. It presupposes that we step up our investment effort, for when the European Union has a euro in hand, that euro must not merely be spent; it must be invested in order to encourage innovation, develop research, maintain our SMEs, and encourage businesses to be handed on. It presupposes that the euro should be accompanied by better coordination of economic and social policies, for there is a real need in Europe for economic governance in permanent dialogue with the Central Bank, and also that we review the Stability and Growth Pact, which must be tougher than 3% in periods of growth, but also slightly more flexible when the economy slows down.
The Europe that we want must not be guided by economic interests alone, but also by values of social progress and full employment. If we are to restore Europe’s credibility in the eyes of our fellow citizens, we have to make it a social Europe with more of a dimension of solidarity. The European model that we want to build is founded upon values of humanism, liberty and solidarity, which solidarity is the result of economic growth, ensuring a satisfactory level of pensions, the protection of the weakest, promotion of the rights of workers and of the family. If asked to sum up in one word my view of the social Europe, I would say it was the Europe of employment."@en1
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