Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-14-Speech-3-049"
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"en.20071114.2.3-049"2
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".
Madam President, Presidents of the Commission and the Council, we have just heard Mr Barroso tell us that the European Union is uniquely well placed to provide a good basis for regulation at global level. He is right. But if that is what we intend to do, we must also put our own house in order. The tools available in the Union for tackling these challenges include what we call the ‘guidelines’ on economic policy and on employment. I fear today that the Commission is trying to lose these necessary guidelines under the carpet of globalisation. But they are useful and we need to review them.
We need to do this firstly because, at the European Council last March, the Heads of State and Government adopted the best possible strategy for enabling the European Union to address globalisation and the challenges of energy supply and climate change. If, in pursuit of that strategy, we do not use all the means at our disposal in the European Union, including the guidelines – and perhaps especially the guidelines – we will get nowhere and we will merely foster disillusionment about the Union’s ability to tackle globalisation.
We also need to do this because Commissioner Almunia himself has recognised that that questions of exchange rates, oil prices and the real impact on the EU economy of the sub-prime lending crisis will affect the Union’s projected economic growth. He has revised the projections downwards: from 2.9% to 2.4% for the Union as a whole and from 2.6% to 2.2% for the euro area.
We need to do this for the further reason that we need to respond to peoples’ aspirations in Europe and, whatever Nicolas Sarkozy may think, social Europe is a very real issue that you will have to address if you want to avoid being disowned by Europe’s citizens in the very near future.
The final reason for doing this was pinpointed today by Commissioner Almunia when he admitted that, in the prevailing international climate, Europe’s growth will be driven primarily, if not entirely, by internal consumption.
Is it conceivable that, against this background of comprehensive change, the only constant should be the guidelines? Is it conceivable that there should be no change in the Union’s only instrument for effectively steering its Member States’ economic and social policies?
I would ask the Commission representative and the Commission Vice-President to tell Mr Barroso that he needs to change the guidelines; that he needs to take account of the new context so that the Union can equip itself internally with the best tools available for meeting the challenges of globalisation head on."@en1
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