Brussels, 18/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - The participants of the tripartite Social Summit in Brussels on Thursday 18 October said greater effort was needed to boost economic growth and create new jobs, but progress had been made in cleaning up public finances.
Herman van Rompuy, president of the European Council, said that the first encouraging results had emerged in recent weeks with spreads falling sharply for virtually all eurozone nations, lower public deficits in many countries, increases in competitiveness in Spain, Portugal and Ireland and exports picking up. Other areas of progress included the bank supervisory mechanism for the eurozone and the launch of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM, the new eurozone bailout fund). The president of the European Council said Europe was suffering from low growth and rising unemployment, so inclusive growth and job creation remained the priority. Van Rompuy called for speedy progress on the €120 billion growth pact, the single market and a digital single market (by 2015).
President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso said the Commission had done all it could with the member states, employers and trade unions to put Europe on the path of growth and give renewed hope to EU citizens. He said budget tightening had to be combined with structural reforms and targeted investment. He said he was not exactly ecstatic at progress to date with putting the growth pact into action (see separate article) and called for the European Summit to step on the gas.
Demetris Christofias, the president of Cyprus, said the top priority was still job creation, particularly for young peope, who had to be given hope for the future. Unfortunately, he said, the facts are gloomy with weak economic recovery and very high unemployment. Christofias said budget tightening was needed, along with measures in favour of the citizens of Europe.
Philippe De Buck, director of BusinessEurope, said the EU27 economy needed to grow by 2.5% and he was pleased to see a sharp improvement in the necessary clean-up of public finances. Likewise, industry is picking up in some countries. He said growth would come from the private sector, big businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises as long as suitable conditions were in place.
Ignacio Fernandez Toxo, president of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), said that the recurring strikes, especially in Greece, revealed ever deeper malaise among European citizens and workers. Two and a half years since the outbreak of the crisis, the austerity policy has failed, he said. Toxo noted a change in direction since the June 2012 European Summit with its “timid” growth and jobs plan, but four months have gone by and virtually none of the June decisions had been put into practice. (LC/transl.fl)