Brussels, 06/10/2005 (Agence Europe) - The president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, spoke out in his defence against the accusations made by French President Jacques Chirac, who said on Tuesday that the European Commission did not show sufficient resolve in defending the interests of Europe, and above all its economic interests. Speaking of the case of Hewlett-Packard, a multinational company that laid many workers off while at the same time making considerable profit, Mr Chirac said it was “not normal” for the Commission to consider it was not involved or concerned and had nothing to say (see EUROPE 9032, 9033 and 9035). This, Mr Chirac said, is “one of the reasons which explains the current disavowal of Europe”. Without referring directly to Mr Chirac, Mr Barroso retorted on Tuesday evening, saying: “There are now two kinds of populism in Europe. The first aims at the markets while the other attacks the very idea of Europe and tries to make the institutions of Europe take the rap for it”. His spokesman also considered it was rather easy to make the Commission the scapegoat in a matter in which it could do nothing. “We have always defended European interests but within the framework of our powers”, Françoise Le Bail said. Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen (industrial policy) stressed on Wednesday that, “although politicians do not create jobs, they can create the environment that will promote industrial development” (see EUROPE 9042).
On Thursday, in an interview with La Libération, Jean Pisani-Ferry, Director of “Bruegel” (the new centre for study and reflection located in Brussels) notes that the Member States tend increasingly to impute to Europe the responsibilities that it does not legally have and Brussels is used as a “scapegoat for internal decisions that must be taken in any case”. The resulting message to the public is likely to be that “Europe foists policies upon us that we do not want. No-one gains if we take such a attitude”. In the case of redundancies at Hewlett-Packard in France, “legislation on employment is incumbent upon the French State not on the Union whose role is limited to defining minimum norms in a few very restricted matters, such as labour conditions”, Mr Pisani-Ferry commented.