Brussels, 01/03/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Liberal Democrats (ELDR) are losing patience with the European Councils and the same persistently repeated message - “the need for growth”. This sarcastic comment was made on Thursday 1 March by Guy Verhofstadt, the head of the ALDE Group at the European Parliament at the end of a party lunch dedicated to the summit. He highlighted the need to put into practice the growth agenda and also pointed out that the European patent and bonds had already been discussed for the past year at the Parliament. The Liberal Democrats consider that the European Council should dedicate a large part of its work to the Digital Agenda, which has an essential role to play for developing growth. Neelie Kroes, the European commissioner in charge of this dossier, took part in this meeting and appealed for the single digital market to be completed, which could also provide jobs to young people, as sought by the Council and the Commission. She insisted that within the next few years, 700,000 jobs could be created in the communication and information technology sector.
The European Liberal Democrat wing will not tolerate a Europe that throws Greece out or a two-speed Europe. The leader of the ELDR, Sir Graham Watson, supports a European Community of 27 members and said that they had the proof that a Europe dominated by the EPP did not work. The group is also in favour of Serbia obtaining candidate status and hopes that the European Council will move in this direction. This is one thing that should have already been done during the General Affairs Council two days ago, regretted the German minister of state, Michael Link, who deplored Romania's blockage. (MD/transl.fl)