Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-11-30-Speech-4-048"
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"en.20061130.6.4-048"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, the Commission welcomes the opportunity to participate in this debate on growth and employment policy and we are quite clear in welcoming the present report. I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs del Castillo Vera, most warmly for her thorough and objective consideration of the issues involved.
We are having this debate a few days before the Commission’s decision on the progress report on growth and employment policy in 2006. I share Mrs del Castillo Vera’s analysis that we, in Europe, do in fact know perfectly well where our problems are. We also know exactly what needs to be done. We have the right answers to the problems but – and this is where Mrs del Castillo Vera got it quite right – there is a problem with the implementation of the measures deemed correct, in particular at the national level. It is also easy to explain why.
The long-term needs for reform that we have identified for European growth and employment policy always come up against the short-term interests of national politics. There are always elections somewhere. The machinery always grinds to a halt somewhere. Even so, I am in a position to tell you today that the progress report that we will be adopting in a fortnight will be sending out two uncommonly positive signals.
The first signal is that, for the first time, we actually have a functioning mechanism in Europe to coordinate the economic policies of the Member States and the EU itself. That, of course, was the big problem with the Lisbon Strategy, as you identified, in that while its aims were very ambitious, its implementation mechanism was practically non-existent.
The second positive answer is that the priorities of the Member States have changed to a noticeable degree. We will be able to show in our reports, which cover every single country and every single sector of the economy, that the issues in our strategy are now on the agenda all over Europe. These issues are education and training, research and development, innovation, better conditions for businesses, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises, and improving the employability of those social groups denied access to the labour market. These issues are all the hottest topics on the political agenda in every Member State, and so I am very pleased that the report under discussion today has very clear things to say on precisely these subjects. I would like to emphasise in the clearest possible way how much I welcome the fact that this report so clearly endorses Commission policy in relation to small and medium-sized enterprises and to innovation.
I would like to state very clearly that the future of our growth and our jobs depends on our success in bolstering the innovation potential in small and medium-sized enterprises such that they are able to contribute more and more to growth and employment in Europe. It is from this sector that the extra jobs that we need will come, and so it is important that all of our policies are assessed in respect of whether or not they allow Europe’s small and medium-sized enterprises the leeway they need.
We will very soon be in a position to debate the state of growth and employment policy on the basis of the Commission’s progress report. I am fairly sure, Mrs del Castillo Vera, that, when that happens, you will share my opinion that Europe is not in a state of stagnation. We are, rather, clearly moving in the right direction."@en1
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