I'm not going to comment today on the report by the Commission on breathing new life into the Lisbon Strategy. José Manuel Barroso's presentation, the reactions of the political groups of the European Parliament and those of the social partners (see yesterday's and today's bulletins) have allowed everyone to form an opinion. I will stick to just a few comments which may fuel a debate.
Effective retouches. A retouch here, and a retouch there, a sentence added and another shortened, it wasn't hard for the Commission to improve its first draft and avoid the criticism that it was not respecting the balance between the three planks: economic, social and environmental. Criticisms remain, however, which is inevitable, as the Commission cannot and should not espouse the position of any one of the parties in question. The employers feel that more should have been done for competitiveness; the workers' unions make the unsurprising announcement that they will remain vigilant and the Greens will in any case say that more must be done to protect the environment. The main point does not lie in the few reassuring all-purpose sentences, but in the innovations which could bring new vitality to the application of the Lisbon Strategy, which has not been decisive enough as yet, by getting the citizens involved. However well-intentioned the political authorities- and their intentions are not uniformly solid and based on deep-seated conviction- nothing will be possible unless the Member States really take ownership of the strategy, civil society gets its teeth stuck in and there is a bit of confidence in Europe's capacity to react. Would the nations themselves, the same people who were able to make amends having just been freed from a terrible war and rebuild prosperous economies whilst everything lay in ruins around them, not be able to react to the problems Europe is faced with today, less dramatic than those of yesterday as they are? Have lamentation and resignation become our only means of expression?
A President's know-how. Since he's been in the job, José Manuel Barroso has shown an irrefutable skill, first in overcoming problems with the Parliament when he was putting his College together and getting it invested, now in his capacity to fend off accusations that he is not respecting the balance between the three planks of the Lisbon Strategy. I take as proof of his know-how the way he dealt with the British press, whose target of preference has always been the President of the Commission. Compare the tone of this press over the first months of the Barroso Presidency with that of the first year of the Prodi Presidency, and you'll see what I mean.
Reflection. Indispensable. In the short and medium terms, the reforms implicit in the application of the Lisbon Strategy can only be achieved via the usual interpretation of three underlying concepts: growth, competitiveness, globalisation. But I think that at the same time, there should be an in-depth reflection on these three notions, because I am worried (in light of studies and analyses already underway) that in their current state, they are not sustainable. A few words of explanation:
- growth. The reality has been distorted by the purely quantitative interpretation of economic growth. If, for example, a company develops a new car engine which will do 200km on a litre of fuel, the effects are largely positive (less pollution, lower oil imports, etc). But what keeps the statistics down is the fall in activity in the petroleum sector, and it keeps growth down with it. The same is true if an epidemic is defeated: general health improved, fewer people in hospital, reduction in the social security deficit. But the statistics would indicate a drop-off in the activities of hospital and pharmacies. This is all fairly simplistic I grant you; it's there to stress the need for a reflection on the very meaning of growth, which should not just be boiled down to percentage points.
- productivity. The obsession with increasing productivity will lead us to produce ever more goods, more quickly and for less. If China, India and the world in general reach the production levels of Europe, America and Japan, one day there will be more goods produced than people to buy them and room to put them. Perpetually increasing productivity is a delirious dream worthy of Charlie Chaplin's “Modern Times”. Geniuses always see further and better.
- globalisation. Total trade liberalisation in all sectors, including agriculture, without strict “game rules”, is incompatible with the European model of society and with support for the least-favoured countries (as we are starting to see for textiles, bananas, sugar etc). To be continued. (F.R.)