Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-26-Speech-3-034"
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"en.20050126.6.3-034"2
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"Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, we all know that the EU is missing the Lisbon Strategy’s targets. If we carry on as we have been doing, we will not manage to make the EU the world’s most competitive knowledge-based society.
Now, though, we hear Mr Poettering telling the plenary that it was not meant like that, that we do not want to become the most competitive society, that we just want to be able to compete, but, as for being Number One – no, no, that was not what we meant. That, Mr Poettering, bespeaks an attitude according to which competition is something to be talked about rather than faced up to. Sportsmen, entrepreneurs, scientists – they all want to compete and get to the top. If it were you rather than Otto Rehhagel coaching the Greek football team, Mr Poettering, they would never have got to Lisbon. The Greeks won, and we want Europe to win too. We face up to competition. We face up to competition between one economic area and another, quite simply because we have no other option. In this competition, we still have a chance; we have to use it, and we have to use it now.
That the Commission, in its strategy document, has not only acknowledged that, but also wants its policy to be guided by it, gives Europe an opportunity, one that we very much welcome, and on which we congratulate the Commissioners responsible, firstly Mr Barroso, but also Commissioner Verheugen and the other members of the College. It is, after all, clear that we have to focus on becoming more competitive. We must at last grasp what competitiveness is: an indispensable condition for more growth and hence also for the creation of more jobs.
That we do this is a matter of obligation – not merely politically, but also morally. Mass unemployment and long-term unemployment are fundamental evils in Europe, in my own country and in many other Member States. Unemployment causes poverty, and poverty is a breeding ground for social problems, problems with health, and problems affecting the environment. The best antidote to poverty is properly paid work; it brings prosperity, it gives people prospects and a sense of self-worth. Only a society possessing these characteristics can achieve ambitious social and environmental objectives. That these are connected is something your group, Mr Schulz, will have to get into their heads. Mass unemployment is not a social benefit.
With five wasted years behind us, now is the time to get started on implementing the Lisbon targets. The Commission has reached out a hand in partnership; we should, for our people’s sake, seize it. I might add that I am glad that we are having this debate in Brussels rather than in Strasbourg."@en1
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