Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-02-14-Speech-3-298"
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"en.20070214.22.3-298"2
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".
Mr President, Mr Almunia, Mr Gloser, I should like to begin by congratulating the rapporteur on his work; I believe that this report presents both an analysis and recommendations that my group can fully support.
I should like simply to highlight three aspects. The outlook for the euro zone in terms of growth and competitiveness is improving. However, as the report says – and this is my first remark – there are some very important differences between the Member States. I believe that we should try to learn some lessons from this, or, in any case, try to understand why this is so. Things are not always easy; many elements come into play. In particular, the report mentions the difference between the situation of a number of large Member States and that of smaller ones, but, ultimately, it is more complicated than that, since we can also observe spectacular differences in results among the large Member States. Germany has performed averagely, with 2.7% growth last year, which is a very good result compared with previous years. However, with 2% growth, other large Member States, such as Italy, and also my country, France, are below average in terms of EU growth, something that only happened two years ago.
This is combined with other elements that are fairly worrying, since the differences in external trade are just as spectacular. Germany is a record-breaker again, showing an ability to conquer international markets, while France, which for a very long time was a country with a very strong international trade surplus, is producing one record trade deficit after another, quarter after quarter.
It is true that the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands and a number of small Member States have obtained good results in terms of growth, employment and international trade. There is a first lesson to be learnt from this, one that has perhaps come to my mind as a result of my country’s situation. It is that, in a country in which for five years, there has been one, let us say, liberal, structural reform after another, in which it was explained to us that that which was going to enable us to resolve the crisis, and the employment crisis in particular, was to reduce taxes – corporation tax, income tax – to jeopardise some forms of employment protection – we had a 'new employment' contract, which undermined protection against redundancies, etc. – to weaken public services and to privatise, we have not obtained a single result. On the contrary, some countries that have kept compulsory levies and higher labour costs than France are, for their part, showing important results.
I have learnt a second lesson from this, which is that not only has this formula been ineffective, but it is wrong to think that Europe will cope if it practices downwards competition. It is not by practising a form of competition based on low costs that Europe will manage to extricate itself, but by investing in human resources, in innovation, in research, in training and in universities.
My third remark, and a point rightly noted in the report, is that, despite this overall increase in growth and economic results, poverty continues to be a problem. Even when compared with the 1990s, the level of poverty within the European Union has gone up again. At the end of the day, there are 80 million Europeans living below the 60% average income threshold.
On this issue, I believe that we should also learn a lesson from what took place under President Clinton in the United States, which back then experienced a boom with the new economy, a boom that at the same time did not prevent serious poverty from continuing to somewhat poison society, because the Welfare programmes could not be implemented. We too must combine investments with the knowledge-based economy, the competitive economy and social cohesion. The two go hand in hand and support each other."@en1
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