Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-03-20-Speech-3-040"
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"en.20020320.5.3-040"2
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"Whatever brave face we put on it the outcome of the Barcelona Summit was indeed a disappointment. The Lisbon Process that was launched with such high hopes two years ago stalled in Stockholm last spring. Last week European leaders achieved just enough to keep economic reform on the road, but much too little to move it decisively forward in the way that Europe urgently needs.
I was not surprised to hear the attack on Tony Blair's approach to the summit from his own MEP, Stephen Hughes, this afternoon describing Mr Blair's approach as neo-liberalism. We know that Mr Blair has no influence over the socialist instincts and votes of his Labour MEPs here but, long ago, Tony Blair spoke of Barcelona as being a make-or-break summit. After the meeting he spoke only of small solid steps.
Mr Aznar has described the Lisbon Process as irreversible but that is not really the point. Even if Europe is not moving backwards, the failure to make real progress actually costs Europe jobs, prosperity and success. As the Barcelona meeting approached, the presidency's goals became more modest and more vague. Instead of full energy liberalisation, refused by France last year in defiance of its Treaty obligations, we now read "partial" liberalisation, sometime in the future. Instead of immediate action on the single market we read a string of deadlines tailing away over the years ahead. Sadly, the communiqué issued last weekend is really just a wish list of deadlines. It is not a series of binding agreements in spite of the best efforts that have been made by the Spanish Government and by the Spanish Prime Minister to whom I give due credit.
The tough bargaining on the precise terms of the non-domestic energy liberalisation, for example, on financial services directives, on the single European sky, still lie ahead. On each of these, Barcelona is simply an assertion of will and not yet a done deal. At the same time Barcelona also points Europe in the wrong direction in other ways. The communiqué casually looks to greater government spending on a range of priorities whereas really it is lower taxes and smaller government that are the keys to Europe's future economic success.
It reaffirms a European social model that is desperately in need of reform. It envisages greater harmonisation of energy taxes as the reward for what is a limited and uncertain energy liberalisation conceded by France. French resistance on energy and the interventionist tone of parts of the communiqué highlight the continuing need to oust socialist governments right across Europe.
The liberalising instincts and hopes of Prime Ministers Aznar and Berlusconi are encouraging but the European Union will only be able to put them into practice if Mr Hughes and his friends on the left are rejected from power in the many national elections that are taking place this year. The return of the centre-right to power in Portugal after Italy, Austria and Denmark is a hopeful sign. Unless there is real change the hopes for Europe's economic future will be dashed.
Finally
put this properly: " The promise to become the world's most competitive economy sounded widely ambitious in Lisbon two years ago. Without rapid practical progress it will soon seem ridiculous"."@en1
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