Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-01-20-Speech-3-008"
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"Mr President, Mr Barroso, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to address my first few words to a country that is suffering pain and tragedy: Haiti.
We need to continue maintaining the fiscal stimuli until the recovery is a reality. We need to commit ourselves to maintaining the Stability Pact and fulfil the Commission’s indications for 2013. We also need to set out an economic strategy for 2020, which the Commission is drawing up and which, in the view of the Spanish rotating Presidency, must be a key matter in the next six months.
We know what the European Union’s strengths and weaknesses are. We know that since the mid-1990s, we have been losing our capacity for economic growth, our potential for economic growth. We know that since the mid-1990s, we have been losing productivity relative to the big economies that we compete with. We also know that we have difficulties in some specific areas that will determine the future of our growth, competitiveness and innovation in a globalised world.
We do, however, also have strengths, and we should remember them. Our strengths are clear: we represent almost a third of global GDP. We are undoubtedly the leading exporting power and the second most important, behind the United States in terms of research, development and innovation. We represent almost 60% of global development aid, which is a great strength for the European Union.
What does Spain see as the fundamental priorities for renewing Europe’s economic strength, for creating a sustainable economy from a competitive, environmental and social point of view? I will mention four main themes that I want to promote, which should be included in the 2020 Strategy. I would summarise these by saying that, in terms of the economy, the European Union needs to bet on itself. It needs to move forward with economic union and cooperation, starting with the sense of responsibility of the Member States, but also ensuring that the Community institutions, specifically the Commission, have new powers to lead and achieve objectives.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the last ten years, our energy dependency has increased by nine percentage points, and this is one of the primary areas in which we must take steps and make changes. Energy dependency has increased from 44% to 53% in the whole of the European Union. These nine percentage points amount to exactly EUR 64 million that we send to other countries as the European Union. Do you know what this amount represents? It represents practically the same amount that all the countries of the European Union spend on public investment in research, development and innovation. We need to change our energy dependency and reduce it, because otherwise, our economic fragility will increase.
What do we need to do? Progress has been made in the field of energy, but not the progress that we want. We need to permanently create an energy common market that will strengthen the whole of the Union and the Union’s economy. There are two key elements that we need in order to do this: energy interconnections, as the expectations set out in 2002 have not been met, and a common regulatory framework to consolidate an energy common market.
If we achieve energy interconnections in the South, East and North of Europe, if we put it forward as a major priority, giving authority to the Commission, we will see our energy dependency reduce, and we will encourage the development of renewable energy sources which, by their nature, require versatility in energy distribution.
Ladies and gentlemen, Europe will not become a leading player in terms of economic competitiveness until it takes definite steps to tackle all the decisive aspects of energy interconnections and the issue of a common market.
The second main objective: in a modern society, what brings the most growth and innovation? Investment in the information society and in the new technologies that have changed almost everything in the world. Forty per cent of the increase in productivity in the European economy is due to information and communication technologies, ICTs. We are leaders in this field as Europeans, because we have leading companies, but we do not have a digital internal market. We want to take steps to establish a digital market. What does this involve? It involves removing barriers, it means committing to new-generation networks and facilitating e-commerce, which is growing every day in every country, but which is not making progress in terms of being possible between several countries.
If we make progress on a digital market, we will facilitate the creation of content and strengthen intellectual property. We will also ensure that, thanks to the innovation that information and communication technologies bring to all areas of the economy, we will see results in terms of productivity within a very short period. I would like to point out that this is the sector that currently has the greatest capacity for innovation, for increasing productivity and creating stable employment.
I know that we all share the concern, solidarity and commitment of all the institutions of the European Union, starting with the rotating Presidency, the Commission, the Council and Parliament, for a country that is suffering, for a people that is being torn apart by death, destruction and violence, following on from a history of poverty and also conflict.
The third area is the economy or sustainable industry. I will only give you one example of what we see as a priority in the context of combating climate change. We want to launch and promote, along with the Commission, a plan to develop electric vehicles. The vehicle industry is going to undergo a major transformation, which has already begun. If we make an integrated commitment in this area of industry, as Europeans, to a common, shared vision and a common strategy for electric cars, we will help to reduce our energy dependency. We will also contribute to combating climate change and to the technological innovation that is undoubtedly going to be opened up by electric cars and will also be directly associated with the information and communication technologies industry.
The fourth central element of this sustainable economy and economic regeneration that the European Union needs is education, especially university education, which is the forum for research.
In the last ten years, Europe has not made progress in terms of the number of universities of excellence in the ranking of the top 100 universities. We need to conclude the Bologna Process. We need to promote, facilitate and open up expectations for increasingly European universities and increasingly European research, because they are undoubtedly the impetus for the future. We are no longer competing country against country, but as Europeans, as Europe, because the other players are the size of China, India, the United States and the emerging countries.
If we do not make the most of the synergy represented by the 500 million citizens in the economy, which means tens of thousands of enterprises with huge capacity and millions of workers, who need to be provided with increasingly better training, we will not be the real leading players of the future, in terms of economic prosperity through innovation and technology, in this scenario of globalisation. We will be spectators, not leading players. The way forward is the Union: more common economic policy, more integration, more shared vision, more Europe. Not putting up more barriers, but removing barriers, not dividing but bringing together, having a vision of the Union that promotes competitiveness, integration and innovation.
We have confidence in the Commission regarding this 2020 Strategy, which must also incorporate a discussion about the future of the Common Agricultural Policy, which is a fundamental policy in terms of environmental protection, food safety and the incomes of many European citizens. We are convinced that the debate that is going to take place in the European Council and the Commission and, of course, the dialogue with the European Parliament, must bring about a 2020 Strategy that involves serious governance and is demanding in its objectives and focused on the areas that I have just mentioned.
Economic change and political change, and change in the government of the Union. The Treaty of Lisbon establishes new institutions: the permanent President of the Council and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs. It strengthens Parliament, the heart of European democracy, and also strengthens the Commission.
I can make a commitment before Parliament, which represents all European citizens, that the Spanish rotating Presidency will be loyal to, and will cooperate with, the new institutions. We want those institutions to have the meaning established in the treaty: namely, the need for the European Union to function so that the permanent President of the Council can represent the European Union and carry out all his functions, along with the High Representative.
We are aware that this six-month period will be the first proof of how the new institutional structure works, and we will also support a strengthened Commission and Parliament, which is increasingly the political centre of the European Union. We are going to do this, and I hope that we will be judged satisfactorily at the end of this period, because our commitment is very firm. There are various powers governing the European Union, and they need to have a common thread, which is cooperative loyalty. That is how we shall work.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are also experiencing changes in the area of external relations, not only because of the existence of the High Representative and the launch of the European External Action Service. There will also be changes because in this context of globalisation and change, we have a decisive six-month agenda. I will tell you what our objectives are in terms of external relations for all the summits that we are going to hold.
Firstly, shared security, secondly, energy, thirdly, promoting and extending the opening up of trade and technology transfer, and fourthly, development cooperation aid, in which the European Union is a major ethical leader in the world.
There are few occasions where we can show what we can do as Europeans in the manner in which we are going to do in response to the tragedy in Haiti. We are going to demonstrate our commitment to what is happening in the world and to the countries that are suffering most.
Over the next six months, we will hold a dialogue on these objectives with North and South America, in the Mediterranean, in Africa and Asia and with the other European countries that are not part of the Union. We will be holding a dialogue with a large proportion of the continents and areas through an intense calendar of international summits in which we will, of course, be working in full cooperation with the President of the Council and with the Commission – because we will be making important agreements during the next six months – and also with Parliament.
Economic changes, political changes and changes in vision, in our external outlook, as a result of new players and globalisation. In addition to the economy, I said a few minutes ago that Europe also needs to bet on itself in the area of external policy. I must say that Europe needs to bet on itself, that external policy needs to take into account European interests and how to defend them. The matter of neighbourhood relations must be a priority. In my opinion, we must establish more ambitious objectives and more intense relations, because that is undoubtedly where a large proportion of European interests are going to be settled.
The changes that we are experiencing and that we want to drive forward through reform and renewal also have a bearing upon European citizens. The Treaty of Lisbon, in line with the will of Europeans, wants citizens to feel closer to the European institutions. It wants them to see the Union as being ‘their Union’ and Europe as a government that is closer to them. In order to achieve this, there are new instruments that we are going to launch and promote in the next six months.
The first of these is the people’s legislative initiative, which is so important to Parliament. The second is that we want to make it a priority during this period, in cooperation with the Commission, to make progress on the most important citizens’ right that the European Union can focus on, which is equality between men and women. The most advanced, perfect societies in which human rights and prosperity are best realised are those that achieve greater equality between men and women. They are the societies that are most active and committed to fighting what is represented by gender violence and mistreatment of women, which is improper and unacceptable in an advanced society such as the European Union. We therefore propose launching new judicial protection systems through a European protection order and maximum extension of protection against the scourge of gender violence that a large proportion of European societies suffer from.
European citizens also need to know, based on our deliberations, our proposals and our initiatives, that social cohesion and social inclusion in response to poverty in Europe are inalienable aspects of the Union, and that, along with democracy, the most important elements of Europe’s identity are welfare and social cohesion. The 2020 Strategy for the economy will therefore, as I said before, have to be economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.
In order to achieve this social sustainability, I propose that we make a major new social pact in Europe between enterprises and workers, a major social pact in the development of the 2020 Strategy. Social dialogue and social agreement made Europe strong when it first came to be, in periods of weakness and now, in this period of renewal and change, after a serious economic crisis; social agreement – namely the social pact – could be a major driving force behind the objectives that we are setting ourselves for effective governance.
Mr President – I am finishing now – ladies and gentlemen, I would once again like to express Spain’s thanks to all the countries of the European Union, especially those that promoted our integration and contributed to our development. I would like to reiterate our commitment to Europe and to the European Union, our commitment to a way of life, but also to a way of thinking and feeling. This involves thinking that favours democracy, equality, human rights, peace, and the sense that living together, uniting our peoples, uniting our aspirations and uniting our history has enabled us to live in peace with ourselves, and today and tomorrow, it can enable us to continue to live in the great region of prosperity, welfare and ideals.
Right from the very first moment, holding the rotating Presidency, and in coordination with the Commission and the High Representative, we have sought to respond to the tragedy in Haiti. Last Monday, the Council of Ministers on Development met, and next Monday the Council on European Affairs will meet in order to plan a rapid response in terms of aid and humanitarian cooperation on all fronts, for the future of Haiti. I am entirely convinced that the response of the international community is a strong, joint response, and that the European Union is going to rise to the occasion. In response to the tragedy in Haiti, the only protagonists should be the people suffering there, and I hope and trust that we will do everything we can to help set in motion a complete recovery. Both European society and, above all, our deep-seated convictions, demand it.
Mr President, it is an honour for me to appear here before you in order to explain the main priorities of the Spanish rotating Presidency over the next six months. It is more than an honour, it is a great honour. It is a great honour because I am speaking on behalf of a country which, in the next six months, will be celebrating its 25th anniversary of joining what was then the European Communities.
I am speaking on behalf of a European and pro-Europe country, a country which, in the last 25 years, has experienced a major transformation in terms of progress and welfare, largely due to being part of the European Union. Europe was the dream of generations, of many generations of Spaniards. It was the dream of democracy, of opening up to the world, of progress, of welfare, of the welfare state, of freedom. This is what we have seen in Europe, what has been brought to us by Europe, and what we have brought to Europe.
Twenty-five years later, we feel loyal to Europe and committed to the Union, and there is no more powerful way to be loyal and committed to Europe than to exercise the responsibility of making commitments, taking the initiative and putting forward proposals. This is what we want to do during the next six months.
These will be six months of change because we are taking on the rotating Presidency at a time of economic change, as a result of the most serious financial crisis for eighty years. It is a time of political change because of the Treaty of Lisbon, which is changing the way that the European Union is governed. It is a time of change in terms of foreign relations, because the phenomenon of globalisation is growing and there are new emerging countries. It is also a time of change in terms of the relationship that Europe needs to have with European citizens in order to give effect to everything set out by the Treaty of Lisbon. It will therefore be a time of change in two circumstances in particular: firstly, the serious economic crisis that we are experiencing, and secondly, the Treaty of Lisbon and its new institutional relationships.
Regarding the economic crisis, I would like to say the following. We are aware that it is a much more serious crisis than we have experienced for eighty years, and we know that, as was the case then, there has never been such a huge decline in global production and international trade. We are aware of the serious effects that it has caused in the world and in the European Union. The number of unemployed has increased by eight million, many of whom are indeed in my country. There has been an effect on public finances, and therefore on the prospects for financial stability, which has impelled and is still impelling us to take urgent cooperative measures. It has also driven us to look towards making changes to the European economy and to its production capacity, and towards improving competitiveness in the whole of the Union."@en1
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