Brussels, 17/06/2010 (Agence Europe) - Following the conclusions document published after the March 2010 European summit, the European Council adopted on Thursday a new EU strategy for growth and employment, the EU 2020 strategy. The Council gave political approval to the integrated guidelines for economic and employment policies and agreed on specific numbers for the education, social inclusion and poverty reduction targets. The member states will now need to implement these policies in their own countries, determining where major obstacles to growth lie and explaining in their national reform programmes how they plan to tackle them. In addition, the summit welcomed a report on a new single market strategy presented by Mario Monti, along with the European Commission's plan to follow this up with tangible action. The European Council will return to this in December 2010.
The integrated guidelines for economic and employment policies will be formally adopted once the European Parliament has published its opinion on the issue. The guidelines will then be used to formulate specific national recommendations from the Council to the member states. The recommendations will have to comply with the Treaty and other EU rules and respect sovereign powers in areas like education.
The European Council decided in respect of specific targets to include an increase in education levels and a reduction in school drop-out rates to below 10%. They decided on the targets of increasing the proportion of 30-34 year olds with higher education degrees or equivalent level of education to at least 40%, and to encourage social inclusion by reducing poverty to ensure that at least 20 million Europeans are removed from the danger of falling into poverty and exclusion.
The European Council welcomed the European Commission's presentation of the first flagship initiative as part of its digital strategy, and urged the Commission to submit a progress report to the summit by the end of next year. The politicians urge all EU institutions to put the digital strategy into operation and to set up a single market in this domain by 2015. The European Council said it expected further flagship initiatives to be unveiled by the end of the year.
At a press conference, the president of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, welcomed the finalisation of the EU 2020 strategy, explaining that it would get things moving in the real economy. The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, said it was time to move towards new commitments to achieve an economy of growth and employment. Activity will now focus on growth levels like the digital agenda and the EU 2020 strategy, explained Barroso, welcoming the fact that the European Council had given its backing for specific targets. This was also welcomed by the Spanish prime minster, José Luis Zapatero, who said the EU 2020 strategy was a strategy of reform to boost competitiveness and jobs, based on innovation as this generates jobs, the digital agenda and energy. On request from the Belgian prime minister (who will soon be the next acting chair of the EU), Yves Leterme, specific targets have also been set for industrial policy, focusing on projects to stimulate the economy. Leterme said a degree of voluntarism would be required for the flagship initiatives and the Commission would be launching new initiatives in the second half of 2010. Sceptical, the British prime minister, David Cameron, said that if the budget deficit were not controlled, then it would never be possible to generate confidence in the population and therefore growth. Business will not recover and confidence will not return if the budget is not dealt with, he added. (G.B./transl.fl)