President Cox,
Honourable Members,
A few days ago I spoke about the importance of knowledge and innovation for Europe's future at Parliament's plenary part-session.
I also stressed the importance of the Lisbon strategy, which remains the reference for the economy and society in the EU.
This morning the Commission adopted the Spring Report. It forms the Commission's contribution to the European Council of 25 and 26 March, which will take stock of progress in implementing the Lisbon Strategy and will set the agenda in terms of the Union's economic, social and environmental priorities for 2004.
In the four years since the Lisbon Council, the Union has made significant progress. For instance, over six million jobs have been created in the 15 Member States since 1999.
This means that even though a slowdown is affecting the EU and world economies, the job market has basically stood up.
What is more, the work of opening up and integrating the markets has gone on.
Lastly, major progress has been made towards structural reform in the field of pensions and the labour market.
According to a recent study of ours, from 1996 to 2001these first reforms generated an increase in income of almost half a percentage point each year.
These first positive signals show that the reforms are not only necessary, but once they are put into effect, they work and bring real benefits.
But we can and must do more, because the progress achieved is still too meagre and it offers no guarantee we will meet the targets we set ourselves.
So why, then, should we continue pushing, now more than ever, to get the Lisbon Strategy moving again?
First, we need to make sure the reforms do not remain patchy and isolated. They will have substantial impact in each country only if they are implemented in a coordinated way and as part of an overall strategy.
For example, reforms of the employment market will achieve all their goals if they mesh as a coherent whole together with matching reforms of the goods and services markets and of education.
In the next five to ten years our potential growth can increase by up to three quarters of a point a year if the reforms can be applied concurrently and in an integrated fashion.
The Report also shows that in some areas progress in reforms is still far from satisfactory.
I am sorry to say these include the very areas I cited recently in this House: investments in research and innovation, education and competitiveness.
Furthermore, the low employment rate, particularly amongst the elderly, needs tackling urgently.
That is why investments, competitiveness and extending the duration of working life are the three priorities the Commission is putting to the European Council in the Spring Report.
Our recent Growth Initiative focuses on investments in European networks and research.
The Spring Report stresses the urgent need to put this strategy into action, especially as regards the Quick-Start Programme.
The Programme covers transnational projects that can be set moving at very short notice in the transport, energy, communications and research fields.
The Initiative's basic objective is to give a new boost to investments, using the Union's financial and political resources to draw in private capital.
If we want to stimulate private capital and channel it into the priority development sectors identified in our strategy, we need to create a favourable environment too, and the Initiative provides for certain regulatory measures that encourage private investments.
Developing such a favourable environment can ensure our firms stay competitive, though this also depends on their capacity to adapt to global market conditions.
This objective, however, falls within a broader regulatory context and also demands that market integration be carried through in key sectors.
This means the package of legislation on competitiveness needs to be adopted by the end of May. It covers a set of measures, including in particular the recognition of professional qualifications, the Community Patent, the latest financial services directives and the framework directive on services.
The interinstitutional agreement reached with the Action Plan for simpler and better regulation will provide a way of regulating relations between competitiveness and environmental protection when future EU legislation is adopted.
In this respect I want to emphasise the importance of bearing these issues in mind at every stage of the legislative process that involves all the institutions.
Nonetheless, our efforts to adopt the measures the Union needs for market integration will be to no avail if the Member States do not show a greater readiness to adopt the requisite national implementing legislation.
Up to now there has been no sign of any such readiness. According to the latest survey, national implementing legislation is still needed for an average of around 40% of directives adopted in connection with the Lisbon objectives.
This is holding up the full implementation of the strategy in significant areas, such as electronic communications and the integration of the railway networks.
Honourable Members,
One of the most complex challenges facing the Union in the next few years is the rising age of its population.
This issue affects all EU countries to different degrees and has far-reaching consequences for the economy and society.
To meet that challenge, we must develop a policy to extend working life, involving measures at various levels.
First, the structure of the pension systems often encourages workers to opt out of the labour market at an age when they still have a lot to contribute to society.
Secondly, businesses, trade unions and governments must review their objectives and organisational models so they can offer employees more flexible conditions at the end of their active working lives.
This will facilitate the switchover to retirement and will mean we can draw on older workers' knowledge and experience more effectively.
Most importantly, though, the stress must be laid on lifelong learning. Currently, employees and enterprises do not invest enough in training.
This means workers gradually lose contact with the working world and there is a growing tendency on the part of both employees and firms to cut short their working lives.
This should be tackled in three ways:
- The incentives to shortening working life should be eliminated;
- Ongoing education must be encouraged so qualifications do not become out of date, and lastly
- The ways work is organised need to be improved.
Honourable Members,
I want to close with some words on the true added value of the Union's work.
No country can successfully tackle the challenges of growth, of building a fair and inclusive society and of the environment on its own.
The measures and reforms set out in the Lisbon Strategy will achieve their objectives only if national reform strategies are applied in a coordinated way and at the same time across the Member States.
This flows logically from the progressive integration of our internal market. But let us not forget that the coordinated application of reforms across the Union can cut the political cost in each Member State.
That is why maintaining and stepping up effective coordination of economic policies is so important. The Commission will put forward its proposals on this in the next few weeks.
Thank you.