Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-02-19-Speech-2-206"
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"en.20080219.30.2-206"2
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"Madam President, President of the Council, ladies and gentlemen, first I should like to congratulate Mrs Starkevičiūtė and everyone in this Chamber, especially members of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, who have been involved in drafting your report, which I find extraordinarily rich in its analysis and suggestions for the future on this new cycle of the Lisbon Strategy for the next three years.
We share the view that implementation must, as the Integrated Guidelines state, take place within a framework of macroeconomic stability, within a framework which strengthens the sustainability of our public accounts, our welfare and social protection systems, environmental sustainability, and within a framework of confidence and commitment on the part of economic agents.
We must make best use of the room for manoeuvre gained through the sound reforms and sound policies of recent years; we must exploit the margin which this time of uncertainty is offering us now that the fiscal positions of our economies in most of our countries have improved.
We can allow the automatic stabilisers to stop working in most of our economies now that there is less growth because of the volatile pressures in the financial markets or the sharp slow-down in the United States.
We are in a better position than in 2001 to cope with a significant slow-down in economic activity, thanks to policies based on the Integrated Guidelines in our strategy.
When, in view of the pressures in the financial markets, we have drawn comparisons between the situation of the European economies and that of the economy of the United States, many of us have over the last weeks and months noted the advantage which the European economies have because of our sound economic foundations. Those sound economic foundations have been strengthened thanks to the policies set out in these guidelines, both with regard to the operation of Economic and Monetary Union, and to the many structural reforms which are part of the Lisbon Strategy.
In particular, there are some priorities for the near future which are also evident and are pointed up in the analyses in Mrs Starkevičiūtė’s report; it is now a priority for us to strengthen progress in financial integration.
Financial integration is an instrument available to us to enable us to bolster our capacity to contend with a situation such as the one we are experiencing now. Some initiatives do exist, such as a road-map recently approved by the ECOFIN Council. We must all help these initiatives to be made reality in practice Europe-wide as soon as possible and we must ensure that Europe speaks with a single voice on those initiatives which must also be discussed and adopted within a more overarching framework, for example at the International Monetary Fund or the Financial Stability Forum.
In the light of all this I am sure that we will work together, that we are going to work together productively with Parliament; this should strengthen the consensus on the basic aspects of our strategy and messages so as to encourage economic and social agents to participate actively in this reform process too so that the reforms are not something imposed from above but rather grow from the ground up and are refined through social dialogue. The European institutions of Council, Parliament and Commission must work together productively so that not only they but also our Member States can develop and as part of their national reform programmes implement the objectives on which we are in agreement this evening.
If we look back over the past three years we can agree with the report’s analysis of the fruits being produced by the Lisbon Strategy in this new phase following the review of 2005.
As has already been said this evening, jobs are being created. A significant proportion of that employment is related to the reforms which are coming out of the Lisbon Strategy, the way in which reforms are viewed in the labour market and other areas of economic activity as set out in the Lisbon Strategy and the national reform programmes adopted three years ago.
Potential for growth is rising, although we would like it to rise further. However, it is vitally important for Europe’s capacity to grow in normal economic conditions to increase. We need greater growth in order to be able to occupy an important place in a globalising world where new and extraordinarily dynamic players are emerging.
In addition, market operation is improving, the barriers which stand in the way of entrepreneurship, of businessmen, and of production-oriented investment, are being removed.
Reforms have been introduced to improve the sustainability of social protection systems and public accounts in many European countries and there has of course been a heightening of awareness of the need for us to take care of the environment in our model for growth.
Lisbon is therefore bearing fruit. The strategy for growth and jobs which has been in operation since 2005 is bearing fruit. It would be a mistake to change direction now. Therefore we essentially agree with the report being debated this evening: we must continue to move forward in the direction it sets out.
Nonetheless it is clear that account must be taken of changes in the situation – whether they be significant changes in the situation regarding energy and the environment, or the need to make countering climate change our top priority, new challenges, experience and obviously the economic climate and the economic situation we have been experiencing in recent months.
The situation we face leads to greater uncertainty for us, as well as pressures on financial markets, and means that in these more volatile, more uncertain, more difficult circumstances, we must accelerate the rate of reforms, accelerate the degree of establishment, the speed of application of the Lisbon strategy."@en1
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