Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-04-11-Speech-2-129"
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I feel that it was very important for this debate to be held and to have heard your opinions, your contributions, your points of view and your criticisms for, without such criticism, Europe cannot grow. However, you will perhaps have realised that I have not come here to trumpet the successes of the Lisbon European Council, because that has already been done and it would be a waste of my time and of yours if I had come here to do that.
What I have come here to tell you is what the Portuguese Presidency is doing to consolidate the program laid down at the Lisbon European Council and what it is doing in terms of specific programmes to boost Ecofin, the Internal Market Council, the Education Council, the Telecommunications Council and the Research Council. We already have specific programmes on which the sectoral Councils will begin work immediately. The President of the Commission, yesterday in Council and today, here in the European Parliament, has also presented a very clearly timetabled programme of actions by the Commission for implementing the e-Europe programme.
This is a very important time for Europe to assert its identity: we have managed to control inflation at European level and in the Member States. We have managed to stabilise public expenditure, to reduce deficits and to ensure a certain level of growth. We have managed to reduce unemployment, and to launch the single currency, we are defining consistent policies for institutional reform, reform of the Council and the Commission, and we are also committed to enlargement and to building a very dynamic and innovative common security and defence policy. So we could not afford to miss this opportunity – and the Lisbon European Council did exactly what was required – to provide Europe with a certain degree of coherence in terms of a general strategy for modernising the economy and employment. We did so bearing in mind that this could not be done in an independent, self-sufficient way, but only by taking account of the fact that we are part of globalisation, that we are facing a competitive challenge on a world-wide scale and that we had to provide a European response to this challenge. This is why the Lisbon European Council surprised those with excessively ideological positions, because it did not address employment using the clichés of the past. Do you remember? Two, three, four or five years ago, the issues of unemployment and employment were only discussed in terms of two theoretical opposites: state-funded job creation, resulting in spiralling public expenditure and deficits, or job creation through unemployment, through the lay-offs caused by excessively lax social policies.
So the Lisbon European Council marks a watershed in the way we perceive the challenges of modernising the European economy in a framework of global competition, on the one hand, and, on the other, the problems of employment itself. This Council was nevertheless firmly focused on both modernisation and employment. This is the first time that the European Union has set a goal for economic growth that is not to be imposed but which is aspirational: 3%. This is the first time that the European Union has set goals in the field of overall employment by trying to raise the overall employment rate from 61% to 70%, and employment amongst women from 51% to 70%. It is also the first time that the European Union has set goals for those parts of society that lack adequate preparation, in the 18-24 age group, and it is the first time that the European Union has set clear goals for more modern professional training, specifically professional training that will equip our citizens to address the problems of employment in a highly competitive economy and not in an economy which is old or obsolete, or in an economy based solely on manufacturing. By setting very clear goals for fiscal policies, in order to gear them towards employment, or by setting goals so that the Commission can assess the sustainability of social security policies up to 2020, the Lisbon European Council has also established a new social agenda in Europe and will even enable the next European Council to focus on something that for years the European Council has not wished to focus on – a European social agenda. What is significant is the fact that this was done without any scandal, without any great controversy, and in an absolutely consensual way.
To conclude, I would like to thank you for your speeches and to say that Lisbon European Summit marks a turning point in the way we talk about the problem of economic and social innovation. And, of course, we who were so deeply involved in preparing the Lisbon European Summit, with the cooperation of everyone, the Commission, Parliament and our social partners, now also have a duty to say to you, that if we are not to treat this issue as a caricature, now is the time for everyone to get into the frame, as anyone who wishes to go back to mere caricature will not be in the frame at all."@en1
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