Mr President, firstly I would like to say how pleased I am that my friend Giorgos Katiforis is still able to muster so much enthusiasm for this very important subject so late in the evening. I would be more than pleased to accede to his request, but first and foremost, I would like to begin with the analysis. Surely the first question we must ask ourselves is: how is the European Union’s economic policy proceeding at the moment, or rather, how is the economic policy of the eleven Member States proceeding at present, for that is what it all revolves around after all? We have asked experts about this and they gave very interesting answers. However, I believe that the most important judges as to whether a country is pursuing sound or poor economic policy are currently the international financial markets and developments that are then reflected in the exchange rates. In which connection, we know that the euro is weak against the dollar; in other words, the international markets have given a poor assessment of the economic policy currently being pursued by the eleven Member States of the European Union whose currency is the euro. Why should this be so? Is it down to the European Central Bank? Definitely not. The European Union is in good financial shape. The European Central Bank has all the instruments at its disposal that a central bank could wish for. The European Central Bank is headed by convincing personalities. They have also fulfilled their task of monitoring price stability and the interest rate policies they have pursued have been completely in line with this task. So it cannot be down to the European Central Bank. Is it down to the forecasts concerning growth and employment in the coming years? The forecasts are absolutely excellent. It is forecast that economic growth will run at 3%, as compared with 1.9% in the 90s. Unemployment is expected to fall, albeit slowly. Price stability in the European Union is better in the eleven Member States than it is in the United States. We have price stability, inflation running at less than 2%. Long-term interest rates are also lower than they are in the United States. The real reason why the European countries are not finding favour is the fact that we are too slow in tackling the structural reform Europe needs. First and foremost, there is the flexibility of labour markets. We are aware that unemployment has fallen more quickly in those countries, including EU Member States, which have made their labour markets more flexible, than it has in other countries. In some countries unemployment is now below 5%. Then there is the major undertaking of reforming the social security systems and adapting them to the requirements of a European home market – here too, we in Europe are lagging far behind. There is also a need to improve conditions for research and development: firstly, there is technophobia within the European Union, which certainly hampers research and development in the EU. Coupled with this is the fact that the protection of intellectual property here in Europe, particularly for small and medium-sized firms – and they are especially creative – is too expensive and does not operate adequately. I also believe that, as matters stand with regard to electronic money, we are about to miss out on opportunities that other countries are already exploiting as we speak, because we are taking too long to adapt the framework conditions. We are also failing to adapt our training systems in good time. For example, if there is currently demand in Germany for electronics experts to be brought into the European Union from other countries, then this only goes to show that our own training systems have failed and that they have not been equipped to deal with the requirements of the information society in good time. In other words, things are moving too slowly. The adjustments that need to be made with regard to dismantling monopolies are proceeding too slowly as well. We have come a relatively long way as far as telecommunications is concerned. We still fall a long way short on the postal services front and there is also still a lot to be done in terms of dismantling monopolies in the energy sector. What is more, we have reason to fear that, in some sectors, private monopolies could replace the old public monopolies, which would mean that, in terms of competition, and in terms of what benefits the public most, we would be jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. But now perhaps a few words on the fundamental difference between our opinion and that of the rapporteur. The rapporteur believes in growth and stimulating demand. He regards this as a panacea. Alongside the many issues where our opinions do not differ to anything like the same extent, this is what stood out from the rapporteur’s proposals. I believe it would not be totally wide of the mark to describe his stance on this issue as belonging to the old Keynesian school of thought. By contrast, we take the view that this kind of economic policy would be lop-sided, and that we should give attention not only to stimulating demand, but also to supply conditions and the structural reforms I have just mentioned. We must set to work on these now, for only then will we be able to hold our own in the face of global competition.

Political group: PPE-DE