Mr President, the challenges of globalisation make it clear to us just how important coordination of economic policies is for Europe, and also the integration of financial, employment and social policies, because little Europe is demonstrating to the world that it is possible to make progress in a region if regional cooperation does not just mean intergovernmental cooperation and is not just a free trade area. I believe that the combination of the single market on the one hand and certain possibilities for giving political direction on the other is what makes the European Union what it is. I therefore very much welcome the Commission communication and Mrs Berès's report, as they make it very clear that we need to make further progress with the coordination process. We all know that the challenges and demands on us are now even greater than ever. ECOFIN has quite rightly made sure that more integrated approaches are now being adopted, especially in the field of capital movements. It is certainly important that we should not just act in unison and improve the quality of coordination, but that we should also agree on guidelines. Fortunately, the Lisbon process, which was taken further in Stockholm, has given us both quantitative and qualitative objectives. Of course these still need to be extended and refined, but it enables us to demonstrate to the public that the coordination process can lead to positive outcomes. If you could not say that, who would be interested in checking if all the Member States have actually met the requirements to which they have committed themselves? One aspect of the commitments that they have entered into is the consolidation of their budgets. Mr Bullmann was quite right to point out the progress made in this area. It is certainly true that there is still more to be done in reducing debt in some Member States, but we should not forget that the Stability and Growth Pact exists as an instrument to prevent us ever exceeding a deficit of 3% of GNP. That is at the heart of the convergence criteria and this deficit is intended to help us to achieve a favourable monetary policy that promotes development. I believe that coordination can be enhanced still further, and that all those policies which can mutually or reciprocally support each other should be brought into this coordination process. I also think that it is a particularly good thing that the European Parliament can call on the national parliaments to take part in the coordination process and I really wish to emphasise that point. We, as a committee, have attempted to constantly highlight this cooperation with national parliaments. Mr President, I would like to make one final comment. We should not see the coordination of policies as an end in itself. We, in Europe, have missed out on growth because over the last few decades coordination has been lacking. We lost out because we did not adopt a coordinated approach to the UMTS auction. We could have achieved a totally different outcome. Nor did we react jointly when the OPEC countries raised oil prices. There is no doubt that we could have achieved a more favourable starting point for economic development if we had acted in a more coordinated way.

Political group: PSE