Brussels, 17/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - As already announced in these pages, on 7-8 December in Oporto, Jacques Delors and Poul Nyrup Rasmussen will set out “ten principles for a new social Europe” (see EUROPE 9308) at the Congress of the Party of European Socialists (PES). In the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of 18 November, former European Commission President and PES leader Delors warned that our social Europe was at stake, because conservative governments considered that European countries could no longer support their social protection systems and the Commission's only reaction to the challenge of 18 million unemployed and 68 million living in poverty in Europe was the liberalisation of the internal market. Europeans had, on the contrary, to establish other priorities, said Mssrs Delors and Rasmussen, stressing in particular the need urgently to increase employment levels, to make the commitment to life-long learning a reality in our societies, to develop social dialogue between governments, unions and employers (particularly to come to fairer decisions on wages and to control change). To counter the risk of fiscal competition between Member States - a scenario which would threaten to undermine social peace, which is Europe's greatest strength - Delors, who founded Notre Europe and former Danish Social Democrat Prime Minister Rasmussen called for a minimum level of corporation tax to be applied throughout Europe. Once again, they criticised the lack of coordination of EU Member States' economic policies, and considered that a European macro-economic strategy would be of benefit to Europe (in this, they recall the idea launched in London in October 2005 by leaders and prime ministers to agree investment plans at European level). Delors and Rasmussen concluded by stressing the importance of a European dimension in social policy and by urging the European Commission to use its right to propose legislation, rather than simply make recommendations, and for it to discard its reticence with regard to European rules which could give the internal market a common social component. (mg)