Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-03-09-Speech-3-015"
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"en.20050309.3.3-015"2
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".
Mr President, for the President of the Commission to succeed in his Lisbon Agenda he needs the Member States to take it seriously. The Council presidency’s plea this morning for somebody in each Member State to take responsibility is well judged. Moreover, President Barroso, you will need political will in the Council and support in this House for your reforms, neither of which is yet fully evident. Europe’s right-wing parties have still not yet embraced the central fact of globalisation that the nation-state and the free market are no longer compatible. Free movement of goods and capital without similarly free movement of services and labour is economic nonsense. And the left is still riven by dissent over the role of the state in managing the economy.
President Barroso, Europe’s Liberals and Democrats will remain steadfast and united in support of your agenda, provided you recognise that the forces which spur growth and create new jobs lie in entrepreneurship and in the determination to make a great product or provide a great new service. The real competition in the global economy is to attract investment capital to back new ideas and create new jobs. Unless the single market can be made to work properly, we will lose that battle.
Liberals and Democrats do not deny that government has a role in economic management. When a better educated, wealthier, more assertive public has developed ethical concerns and a higher sensitivity to risk, and when companies value intangible assets like corporate reputation, there is a demand for active and responsible government. For that reason we welcome your REACH proposals, for example, or a commitment to bringing aircraft emissions into the emissions trading system.
Government too has a role in protecting citizens from fraud or market failure and levelling the playing field not only between businesses, but also between business and the citizen. That is why my Group supported the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive in the last mandate and will support proposals for greater legal certainty in cross-border transactions in this Parliament.
To us, getting the balance of economic policy right seems fundamental. We therefore have serious reservations about, for example, a poorly prepared software patents directive, which seems of more benefit to multinationals than to smaller inventors. Greater intellectual rigour needs to be applied if Mr McCreevy’s proposal is to secure a majority at second reading. Patents should protect innovation, rather than stifle competition. Without a coherent intellectual property regime across the European Union, we will create few new European companies.
Finally, a single market in services must be the centrepiece of the Lisbon Agenda, to provide growth and jobs. But Liberals and Democrats recognise a big difference between the functioning of a market and the discharge of a public service, and the Services Directive will need some changes to reflect that.
President Barroso, you recognise that if Europe’s growth rates continue to lag, we will not provide the same degree of security, prosperity and opportunity for our citizens as others enjoy. We will support your efforts to kick-start Europe’s economy but we are not blind to the weakness of measuring economic progress only in quantitative terms. For example, cars that are safer, more fuel efficient and easier to dismantle after use reduce economic growth in classical terms but create another type of good. We will expect your Commission to be open to such ideas.
To improve the economic vitality and the social and environmental health of our continent simultaneously, the Lisbon Agenda must combine flexibility, fairness and farsightedness. If it does, the Burghers of Lisbon will be proud to have lent their name to Europe’s success. Just as Henry the Navigator guided Europe’s pioneers in the discovery of new lands and great wealth, so you can guide us in the discovery of similar economic success."@en1
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