Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-03-09-Speech-3-076"
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"en.20050309.5.3-076"2
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".
Mr President, I believe the debate has adequately shown that Lisbon is crucial, while at the same time we have to realise that we are in a way faced with a paradox. Europe is the world’s greatest trading power, certain Member States are export champions, as Vice-President Verheugen has also said, and many European firms are world leaders in their sectors – and yet we rather have the impression that we are falling into a kind of perpetual pessimism.
Knowing that these are crucial days for the EU’s economy and for its economic development, we would be deceiving ourselves if we thought we could relaunch the Lisbon Strategy successfully without being able to agree on a serious reform of the Stability and Growth Pact. It would be a waste of time. We cannot face the media saying ‘yes, we succeeded in relaunching the Lisbon Strategy but we failed to come to any agreement over the Stability Pact’. That is no solution.
Europe needs structural reforms just as it needs a macroeconomic framework that will create a proper balance between stability on the one hand and growth and employment on the other. Uncontrolled deficits are certainly not the answer here. At the same time, however, future investments cannot be used to pay the price for a purely accounting approach that has nothing to do with good economic policy.
Finally, I also agree with Mr Verheugen when he makes a direct connection between the success of the financial perspectives and the relaunch of the Lisbon Strategy. What credibility would the European Union have if, in March, it decided to revive research, to step up its action in support of competitiveness and to develop policies more compatible with the ecological balance only to find, scarcely three months later, that, for 0.0X% of its GNP, it was unable to agree on Community financing for its policies? You must agree that is a joke. It is not realistic.
People will be watching the European Union very closely over the next two weeks. It may create a genuine new momentum. It may also fail, putting at risk its future development, the confidence people have in its economy and also, perhaps even more seriously – as a number of speakers have pointed out – putting at risk the strong support it will need from its citizens if it is to succeed. In close cooperation with the Commission and attentive to your Parliament, the presidency wishes to make a success of this great partnership project that we are in the process of getting off the ground. We are counting on Parliament’s support as next week it organises a big meeting on the Lisbon Strategy with the national parliaments.
The Lisbon Strategy is also an issue of democracy, it needs the backing and support of our societies. Without that support, there will be no success at the end of the road. I believe we now have the ability to release the energy, to release the creativity, to release the spirit of innovation and initiative with which Europe is overflowing, but we must take things in hand, open up new prospects for the people of Europe, and that gives me confidence for the future.
In aeronautics and space technologies, with Galileo for example, European industry has demonstrated its ability to make up lost ground. Note, too, that we are experiencing the success of enlargement. The new Member States are showing dynamism and an exemplary European momentum. The gap between the old and the new members of the European Union is closing: 5% growth for the new, around 2% for the old. This shows that Europe has tremendous creative ability. It also shows that Europe’s decline is neither real nor inevitable.
At a time when we are complaining, feeling we are experiencing a period of decline, the rest of the world is concerned about the US deficits, the trade deficit and budget deficit. However, the US is producing growth, it is producing research, it is producing jobs. In the end, that is where the weakness of Europe as a whole lies. The question must nevertheless be approached with some caution, because when we speak of Europe the situation varies from one country to another. There are differences between Member States, there are States where employment is less of a problem, where there is growth.
Overall, however, we are struggling to reach a sufficient and sufficiently sustainable rate of growth to create the jobs Europe needs if it is to cut an excessively high level of unemployment appreciably and sustainably. As I have already said, however, there are no grounds for pessimism provided the relaunch of the Lisbon Strategy does not stop at fine words but really does bring a fresh impetus, a fresh impetus that we need, that Europe’s citizens need and on which they are really counting.
The revival of economic growth is certainly not synonymous with dismantling the European social model. The suggestion that we can achieve growth by dismantling the system of social protection does not seem credible to me. Nor is it synonymous with unlimited exploitation of natural resources regardless of the consequences, because in a way that would be the opposite of real quality growth. That is not the way that has been chosen for relaunching the reform strategy, the Lisbon Strategy, either. Social exclusion produces neither more growth nor more jobs.
We must also be aware, however, that an economy that is increasingly uncompetitive and which no longer generates enough jobs, inevitably leads to social exclusion and undermines the very foundations of the European social model. That is why the presidency advocates growth as a way of fostering social cohesion, because social cohesion and economic growth are closely linked and in a way enrich one another.
In this respect, I think the European Parliament’s resolution is an important contribution to the great reform project which the relaunch of the Lisbon Strategy represents. Your messages have been heard: more research, a better translation of research and innovation into new products and new services, better access to, and wider dissemination of, new technologies and innovation, enabling new knowledge to be better anchored in the economy and in society – a project for a knowledge-based economy that is the opposite of a society which marginalises large sections of the population – and accelerated development of the eco-technologies that can allow Europe to affirm its leadership in its future activities.
Finally, I entirely agree with what Vice-President Verheugen said about the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the reservoir of jobs that Europe needs. If that network is to develop, however, we have to think of new ways of financing it. It is unfortunately often too difficult to find the financial resources to establish a business. The bureaucratic and administrative hurdles are sometimes too much of a deterrent for young people to embark on the adventure of forming new businesses. We must therefore concentrate on better legislation, reduce the bureaucratic obstacles where that can be done easily and also have European laws that are more accessible and easier to understand. I believe we must follow that route more energetically in future.
However, social innovation, investment in human capital and lifelong training are also ways of ensuring that flexibility, a term on which there is broad agreement, does not preclude a necessary amount of security. Insecurity is not a source of confidence for the future – quite the contrary. To some extent, the aim of the new Lisbon Strategy is a dynamic Europe which is not a victim but is a protagonist of globalisation – a genuine protagonist helping to shape that globalisation. We do not want a multi-speed society, we want everyone to share in growth, economic development and the expansion of knowledge."@en1
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