Brussels, 03/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - The President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, and his Employment Commissioner Anna Diamantopoulou held an informal meeting in Brussels on Thursday 2 October with representatives of the European social partners, in order to exchange points of view on the European initiative to boost growth, which aims in particular to encourage investment in two key sectors of the Lisbon agenda, networks and knowledge (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.5-6).
Addressing a press conference, President Prodi flagged up the danger of disindustrialisation of the countries of the EU, "which we cannot accept", but also the difficult situation in which European SMEs find themselves. "In Europe, we are seeing banks gradually abandoning their support for SMEs", added the President, who called upon "banks to respect the criteria of Bâle II (access to funding) as soon as they can". Mr Prodi expressed the need to boost co-operation between universities in order to increase workers' qualifications. Anna Diamantopoulou stated that the Commission was preparing "this discussion on growth and employment" ahead of the Social Summit of the 25 European Employment Ministers, to take place on the eve of the December Summit in Brussels. "We are hoping for concrete ideas not only from the social partners, but also from the private sector", indicated Ms Diamantopoulou, stressing that "it is easier, at European level, to find money than well-qualified people". She added: "we need to invest in human resources, growth alone is not enough".
Speaking on behalf of the European employers (UNICE), its Secretary General Philippe de Buck lent his support to the Commission's initiative, especially regarding trans-European networks and infrastructure. This initiative also received the support of John Monks, Secretary General of the European Trade Unions Congress (ETUC), and his UEAPME (small and medium enterprises) colleague, Hans-Werner Müller. Mr Müller called upon the European Investment Bank "to do something for the guarantee systems, the great problem faced by SMEs being access to funding". Rainer Plassman, Secretary General of CEEP (state companies), highlighted the connection between the public and private sectors, and the role of universities for economic growth.