Strasbourg, 14/03/2000 (Agence Europe) - The debate on Monday afternoon in Strasbourg on the European Council of Lisbon on 23 and 24 March showed that some MEPs expect a great deal from this extraordinary summit (essentially, they expect it to give fresh impetus and a new direction to concerted economic and social policy at European level). Many others, however, fear it will end up being reduced to an enumeration of priorities and aims already set out on several other occasions, including by other summits. Several MEPs welcomed the fact that the president of the European Council, Antonio Guterres, had come to speak to them before the summit. "You had the courage to take a political risk and it is to be hoped that your initiative will create a precedent", said the president of the Socialist Group, Spanish national Enrique Baron Crespo.
My presence here is not just a "formality", assured Antonio Guterres, who reaffirmed his very great expectations in the Lisbon summit and stressed in general the need to pursue the road of European construction by overcoming national egoism. This summit must improve the EU's ability to orient the European Union's policy and strategy on economic and social matters, he said, considering that the Union may win not only the battle of employment, but also that of growth, competitiveness, the information society and the knowledge society. "We can become as competitive as or more competitive than the most competitive economy in the world, while respecting our identity and our social model, which is also a form of civilisation which we shall never agree to give up. In order to regain its leading position, Europe must not bring its social model into question, but bring it up to date. It is true that the American society is more dynamic, that it has faster growth, that it releases more venture capital, but it is also true that the European society is more humane, more egalitarian and more just", and that it has a leading position in certain important sectors of the future, such as mobile telephony and digital television. At the same time, the "communication flow between the political society and the civil society", although it functions well at the level of certain Member States, does not work as well at the level of the Union as a whole (it is true that there is not yet a "European" public opinion, he remarked).
Our aim is for the European Union to have, in ten years' time (but "not at any price"), the most dynamic and most competitive economy, founded on knowledge, which is today the true raw material for labour. He went on to recall the four pillars on which, according to the Portuguese Presidency, this more dynamic, more competitive and true-to-itself Europe should be built. He said we must:
a) - Raise the challenge of the knowledge society and information society. Congratulating the European Commission on its work on "e-Europe", Mr Guterres stressed that networks and content are needed but that diversity and cultural creativity should be preserved. Furthermore, he insisted on the integration of the information society into a real "education society", a "learning society", which mainly involves coordination of science and research policy at European level;
b) - Pursue economic reforms needed for competitiveness and innovation, mainly by creating a real European venture capital market and encouraging SMEs, mainly those using high tech;
c) - Ensure social cohesion and fighting social exclusion (it exists, we cannot deny it, said Mr Guterres). "We have a sound base on which to build with the Luxembourg process", said the Portuguese Prime Minister, noting that the fight against exclusion also requires "specific measures", in addition to measures for promoting employment, for training. He mainly urged for the role of women in active life to be strengthened;
d) - Pursue a macro-economic policy which serves not only growth but also employment. It is desirable, said Mr Guterres, that the Union should, "in respect of the natural differences of rate" between Member States, reach a level of growth greater than 3% per year and rates of employment close to the 70% reached in the United States (at present it is 60% on average). In Lisbon, without creating a new process after those of Luxembourg, Cardiff and Cologne, we should mainly add a new dimension to these processes (the information and knowledge society) and adopt clear objectives that are "if possible quantifiable", said Mr Guterres.
Mr Prodi says: Lisbon must be summit for sustainable growth and employment
"Together we will make of this Summit a great success for Europe", said European Commission President Romano Prodi from the very beginning of his speech. The issues on which the Summit focuses are "familiar" but it is now necessary to act because this "unique window of opportunity" of Europe's good economic results must be seized (Mr Prodi noted that there have never before been "unanimous" forecasts for growth and low inflation despite the rise in petrol prices). The European Commission's contribution to the summit "reflects our consensus on the need for a new vision and a long-term socio-economic strategy", stressed Mr Prodi, who believes the novelty of the approach proposed lies in not tackling issues "in isolation", but as a collective whole. This must be done, he said, because there is the technological challenge (Europe must make up for lost time, and can do so), the social challenge of unemployment and exclusion: the new technologies must not produce more social exclusion, as in the eighties and still more recently. Once again, Mr Prodi insisted on the need to focus on "people", human resources (which mainly means improving employability thanks to education and training), and also on "ideas" (which mainly requires easier financing of costs of research and development), and "the market" (which mainly implies that the internal market should take off in sectors where it is still underperforming, such as services, e-commerce, energy, transport and financial services). Mr Prodi also repeated that Europe needs a European Company Statute and a Community patent. The European Commission will take the necessary steps to ensure that these commitments yield concrete results, assured Mr Prodi, recalling that the Commission hopes to do what is necessary to become an 'e-Commission" using information technologies like any modern and effective administration. The fundamental aim of Lisbon is to "put all this on track", affirmed Romano Prodi. Regarding the methods for measuring progress made, he cited benchmarking, comparison of results, and felt that the use of "stable" indicators will "enable us to see where we have got to" and to "analyse the reasons for success or failure and to disseminate best practice". In Lisbon, the EU should take several specific commitments, and adopt a limited number of "concrete but measurable" measures as it is now that decisions will be made for Europe's position in the coming century, concluded Romano Prodi.
The debate: great expectations, considerable scepticism
Many MEPs welcomed the initiative of convening the extraordinary summit in Lisbon, like Mr Suominen who, on behalf of the EPP Group, felt that the aim, at the end of the day, is "improved quality of life". The Finnish MEP also stressed the need to eliminate the obstacles which prevent the European economy from developing all its potential. Employment, education and competitiveness are tasks which come under Member State competence, but the "natural road" in Europe is coordination between Member States, said Mr Suominen. President of the Socialist Group Mr Baron encouraged the Portuguese Presidency to ensure that the IGC mainly strengthens Europe's ability to have an "economic government" and for the European Council to take primacy over the Ecofin Council (it is no longer necessary, he said, for the latter to cancel shortly after the guidelines established by the heads of state and government). "Your objectives for Lisbon seem to me to be a good social-democrat initiative for modernisation of European society", Mr Baron told Socialist Antonio Guterres. President of the Liberal Group, Mr Cox, said he would rather use the term "enlightened liberal project". He has great hopes that this summit will manage to point the way to "release the dynamism" existing in Europe. If we were to follow the "best practices" of the best among us or outside Europe, at EU level, we would already have 30 million jobs more, double the number of our current unemployed, said the Irish MEP, for whom this simple calculation means "at least 15 million reasons" to believe in the Portuguese Presidency's project. The task to be carried out in Lisbon is "no less than shifting the policy trend" followed in the EU in order to allow European citizens to achieve their full potential, affirmed Pat Cox.
We should like to believe in what the Portuguese Presidency is telling us, "we should like to believe, but we cannot", Mrs Flautre, speaking on behalf of the Greens, forcefully stated. She exclaimed: "We know that the new economy allows the creation of new "creative" jobs, computer experts (…) but we know (…) the dreadful working conditions" that prevail there, "we know that new technologies do not, alone, produce grater democracy (…), and, finally, we know that UNICE (…) openly announced the colour of things in the preparatory documents for the European Business Summit scheduled for June in Brussels (…) We have not heard that the citizen would take precedence over the client of e.commerce. We have not heard that beyond the goal, set out and positive, of eradicating child poverty by 2010, people's autonomy (…) would be strengthened by the setting up, in each Member State, or decent minimum basic wages". Mr. Miranda, for the European United Left Group, also said he was very sceptical as to the concrete results of Lisbon. His group places great importance on certain objectives set for the summit, but he wondered: do we really have the political will to do something, or is it yet again an initiative without consequence? A quality job together with rights, that is a fundamental right, said the Portuguese MEP, denouncing the "neo-liberal drift", "pauperisation", exclusion of an increasing number of Europeans. The Group of the United Left has published fourteen-point conclusions for the Summit, said Mr. Miranda, for whom the EU should in particular set itself the goal of an employment rate of 75% for 2010. Another Portuguese MEP, Mr. Queiro, of the Union for a Europe of Nations Group pleaded in favour of the European social model, and told the Portuguese Presidency: if it is a question of the role of the family, defending the elderly, pensioners, salary gaps, social cohesion, "this new Europe remains to be built". Mr. Berthu, French member of the same group, considering that the goals set out for Lisbon "give me vertigo", considered that the summit could go in either of two directions: one, which "would not be that bad", would consist of beginning a "stimulating exchange of views" on measures that each Member State could then implement at home; the other, which seems more likely to him, would consist in an attempt to operate a further "transfer of powers" to Europe, thus "more bureaucracy, which is precisely the opposite of what is needed". We are busy "reinventing the Gosplan" and planning "further violations of subsidiarity", said the member of the Pasqua list referring the terms used in the preparatory documents for the summit on the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines. As for Mr. Lang, member of the French National Front and member of the Technical Group of Independent Deputies, he denounced the "regressive social policy" practiced by Socialist Governments in Europe, and considered that the "European social model risks not supporting" globalisation, whereas Denmark's Mr. Bonde, of the Europe of Democracies and Diversities Group, said that Lisbon would do better to look towards the "Danish social model" (in Denmark unemployment has dropped to some 5%, whereas the level in the EU is double that, he said). I hope that, in the referendum of 28 September on Denmark's accession to the euro, "we shall keep the Danish kroener", Jens-Peter Bonde concluded.
Guterres emphasises determination to reach concrete undertakings
Answering MEPs. Mr. Guterres repeated that the Lisbon Summit had to lead to concrete measures, especially to guarantee all young people a minimum of training in computer technology, enabling them to use a computer. He placed emphasis on the need to "invest heavily in human capital" by strengthening life-long education and training. Having observed that "unregulated globalisation creates a gap between the rich and the underprivileged classes", he acknowledged that the development of the information society could further reinforce social divisions; that is why the aim of the measures taken in Lisbon is to guarantee access to knowledge for all.
Mr. Prodi also said that the Summit would have to take concrete decisions to strengthen competitiveness ad consolidate growth in a sustainable manner while reducing the social divide. He pleaded in favour of the development of an information highway. "We must kick-start the process. Then, the private sector will take over", he said before continuing: "We do not want to set up a planned and centralised economy" but simply set up a framework guaranteeing social and territorial cohesion.