Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-03-09-Speech-3-012"
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"en.20050309.3.3-012"2
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Mr President, honourable Members, the great growth and employment initiative that we are discussing in this House today is the Commission’s most important project for the coming five years, by the success of which we – and not we alone – will, we know, be judged. All European institutions will be judged by whether or not this growth and employment initiative is a success, for the people of Europe expect us to really reverse a trend and keep Europe up to the mark in global, and ever more acute, competition at a high level – and I emphasise ‘at a high level’. The prescriptions that we sometimes hear for how to deal with the perils of an ageing society, with the dangers of increasing globalisation, with the ever-more complicated ways in which work is shared out around the world, the prescriptions that we sometimes hear to the effect that competitiveness must be achieved by cutting wages and downgrading social and environmental standards – such prescriptions are wrong. Instead of being able to indulge in downward competition, we will have to hold fast to the fact that Europe’s ability to compete is dependent on the quality of its goods and services and on the leading position that they occupy, and we should not be too abashed to say loud and clear that something made and sold in Europe can not only claim to be ‘number one’ in terms of technology and quality, but also that it embodies certain European values, such as the idea that our products and services cannot come into being by dint of the ruthless exploitation of the environment or ruthless trampling on people’s rights. I am firmly convinced that, in the long term, such a European philosophy of economic policy gains us a competitive advantage, for the other dynamic regions of the world cannot get away from the fact that people want higher environmental and social standards.
I want to explicitly stress that the growth and employment initiative, the new Lisbon agenda, is a project that can work only if it is understood as being founded on partnership. People may well think, ‘right, let that lot in Strasbourg and Brussels get on with it, and we’ll watch them fail yet again’, but it can only work if the European institutions and the Member States regard this project as a shared responsibility. The President has just had something to say about the doubts expressed by some Member States about the way we intend to implement this strategy, and it is they whom I am addressing when I say that we have no intention of building up a ponderous mechanism of reporting, recommendations and sanctions; what we want is a model in which we, together, set out and analyse the policy’s outcomes. We do, however, need to have these summarised in a progress report, and that has to be based on progress reports from the Member States. These are nothing for anyone to be afraid of, for, even now, the Member States have to submit detailed reports; indeed, what we are now proposing reduces the burden on them. Nobody need have any fear that the Commission plans to draw up rankings, or, as one says, to ‘name and shame’ anyone, but we must be able to see clearly what we have achieved in a year and what we have yet to achieve.
Secondly, the Commission is pressing hard for the governments of the Member States to appoint members – ministers – who will have responsibility for coordinating the Lisbon strategy in their countries. This strategy must have faces associated with it. The most natural solution would be for this function to be taken on by the ministers who sit on the Competitiveness Council, whose remit includes the Lisbon Strategy in any case. That would also enable this Council, which is currently looking for a new role, to find one and be much more effective in playing it. The Commission is very, very emphatic in recommending this option.
The last point I want to make is that I will, in the course of this year, be producing a series of important initiatives to flesh out the project’s European dimension. Everything that the Commission presents will be subject to prior approval, judged in terms of what contribution a particular project or initiative makes to growth and employment in Europe. That is the question that must be answered in all cases, and answer it we will. We will very soon be presenting to you major policy initiatives in my own area of responsibility, and the order in which I shall now list them is a matter of deliberate choice. First of all comes better lawmaking. The ‘Better Lawmaking’ project has, to put it tactfully, been trundling along for some considerable time. It needs a clear political direction. It has to be clear that improved lawmaking is something that has an immediate and direct effect on the productivity and quality of the European economy. It is another thing that we cannot work for unless we do it together. Parliament has a great part to play in this, as does the Council, as do the Member States and the Commission. It is not just about future lawmaking and how we ensure that it improves competitiveness; it is also about the
as it stands at present and examining it to see whether we really do still need all the things we have enacted over the past decades or whether a considerable degree of simplification is possible in this area.
Secondly, Europe possesses vast and virtually unused potential in terms of economic performance; it is there, before our very eyes, we often talk about it, and yet little is done about it. I am talking about the 25 million small and medium-sized businesses in Europe, which provide two-thirds of our total workforce. Let us not be content with telling those 25 million that they are the backbone of the European economy, and then do nothing beyond that. Instead, we need a policy that makes use of the sector’s enormous potential in terms of innovation, investment capacity, and creativity, and turns it into jobs. I will shortly be putting before you proposals for the comprehensive modernisation and upgrading – I stress ‘upgrading’ – of Europe’s policy on small and medium-sized enterprises.
Thirdly, there is industrial policy; the word itself calls forth fear in some Member States. We need a modern definition of industrial policy for the twenty-first century. It can no longer be what it was in the past, with protective fences being put up around certain industries; here, too, the only thing to do is to maintain competitiveness and enhance it, but we need to be aware that Europe needs a strong and long-term industrial base, and so it will be necessary to consider European industry sector by sector and to discuss with all the stakeholders – companies, trade unions, legislatures and governments – which framework conditions are the best for the sector under consideration, enabling it to make the maximum use of its potential for growth.
The last topic I want to mention is that of innovation. Here, too, the Commission will be coming up with new and far-reaching proposals. Innovation is the link in the chain between research, development and production, and it is where Europe is not strong enough. We need to improve our capacity for turning what comes out of research into innovation, and to do so everywhere. The Americans, among others, are much better at it.
The present Commission is firmly convinced that Europe is strong enough to face up to the challenges of global competition. In almost every sector of the economy, there is at least one European company or country that leads the world. To put it another way, we can do it. We can learn from one another. We can support each other making use of the potential that exists in our societies, but we will need to give the European institutions the capacities to implement a policy along these lines, and so, before I conclude my speech, I cannot do other than observe that growth and employment policy is a powerful instrument for achieving these long-term policy goals of ours, but the figures in the next Financial Perspective must reflect it. I think the only thing I can say on this is that it would do serious damage to the success of our growth and employment policy if the uncertainty about the next Financial Perspective were to persist for some time. As a matter of urgency, I appeal to the Member States to take to heart the fact that great projects need time for preparation. Time is not on our side. It is also an issue of Europe’s credibility in the eyes of the public; we must be prepared to demonstrate that what we say will be backed up by what we do. It is also a fact that action costs money – there is nothing I can do about that. Without a Budget that produces the goods, without a clear Financial Perspective, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve what we aim to do."@en1
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