Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-03-09-Speech-3-025"
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"en.20050309.3.3-025"2
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"Mr President, Mr President of the Commission, Mr Vice-President, first of all I should like to thank my co-rapporteur, Mr Klaus-Heiner Lehne, for the work which we did together on the preparation of the motion for a resolution on which Parliament will be voting today. I am also pleased to have heard already, in the remarks of the President and the Vice-President of the Commission, an echo of what our resolution expresses.
In recent years the European Union has acquired a currency of its own, has been enlarged, and has adopted a draft Constitution; in other words, broadly speaking, it has established its framework. Now, however, the substance of its policies does not match up to its citizens’ expectations. That is why it has to concentrate on growth, on employment, on social and territorial cohesion, not only because these are the very objectives of this process of building Europe – now that peace is assured – but also because they are the prerequisites for the public’s support for the political plans for the construction of Europe, as Mr Martin Schulz has reminded us. That is why we believe that it is important to state that the Lisbon strategy must be the Union’s priority over the next five years. We believe that this strategy is the right one, provided that it is taken seriously, in other words provided that it is effectively implemented in the Member States in the three dimensions defined at the 2000 Summit under the Portuguese Presidency.
Our objective must be to put our money on European competitiveness and growth, by basing them on the elements of the European model and not – as we sometimes have the impression that you are doing, Mr President, when you mention your three threads – by setting one of those three threads against the other two. We think that we can only properly serve the interests of economic competitiveness by looking after the social and environmental aspects equally well.
We do not believe that Europe has a future as a low-cost competitor. I am delighted to hear you mention the need to put our money on excellence, high-quality training for the labour force, human capital, research, and the quality of infrastructures and public services. These are advantages which will ensure that investors back the European Union. It is because the European Union’s products will be based to a greater extent on technology, know-how and eco-innovation that they will find their place in the world markets. It is because we are relaunching growth on that basis that we shall have the resources to finance effectively a high level of training, distribution and social cohesion within the Union and in particular the enlarged Union.
There is therefore a battle to be fought, and clarifications to be made. In fact – and I welcome the fact that in this Parliament, essentially, by means of our motion for a resolution, we have managed to avoid these pitfalls – there are a certain number of people who would like to see the Lisbon strategy reduced to a sort of magic formula, a programme of wholesale liberalisation: liberalisation of the services market, liberalisation of the employment market, and liberalisation of pension schemes, as if that was enough in itself to ensure the relaunching of European growth and of competitiveness. In my view, not only is that rather limited, but it is also completely beside the point.
Europe needs reforms, and we are all agreed on that. It needs to adapt and to have a more dynamic economy, but it also needs investment, it needs to restimulate internal demand, and it needs to coordinate its efforts and to concentrate them on what can, in future, constitute its wealth and its opportunity in international competition. That is why our resolution puts the emphasis on a financial perspective which is consistent with the Lisbon strategy, in other words the doubling of the European research budget and constant effort as regards the major trans-European networks, social cohesion and regional policy. That is why our resolution puts the emphasis on an ambitious social agenda which must be integrated into this overall strategy, and on the fact that the road map which you have presented to us – the legislative and budgetary action plan – must relate to the three dimensions of the Lisbon strategy.
At the moment we have the feeling that there is still a lack of balance, that most of the specific proposals concentrate on competitiveness, the economy and structural reforms, and that there is a lack of incentives, information and legislative initiatives in the area of social cohesion and on environmental issues. For example, we now want to see a real draft framework directive on services of general interest. We would like to see a reform of the European Works Councils, in order to enable us to say that the quality of employer-employee relations in Europe is part of our development strategy. In the area of eco-innovations, we should like to see more specific initiatives, and we are pleased to note that, finally, industrial policy linked to innovation and aid for small and medium-sized enterprises has been included in the Commission’s programme.
That is the essence of the message which will be expressed by the European Parliament. I am delighted that we have achieved very broad agreement once again thanks to the work of Mr Daul, Mr Lehne and Mrs Thyssen. I am sorry that a certain number of other groups on the Left feel unable to join us, on the basis of the content of this resolution. I can understand that there are still differences, but I can quite honestly say that I believe we have managed to come up with a clear, strong message which is in line with a Lisbon strategy which contributes to the European social model."@en1
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