Mr President, a lot of things may be going to happen at the Barcelona European Council, but it will not be the opportunity to assess the implementation of the sustainable development strategy that was proposed at Gothenburg: a sustainable development strategy which – I would remind you – is based on the balance between the economy, social cohesion and the environment, three factors which all the European institutions – Commission, Parliament and Council – recognised as being inextricably linked. We thought, after Gothenburg, that the idea had been established that the Lisbon objective of making Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010 was inadequate as it stood, and that it should be supplemented by the goal of making the Union the most ecoefficient economy. Evidently, we were wrong. The Spanish Presidency’s commitment to returning to the initial Lisbon philosophy and to confirming the three sacrosanct principles of liberalisation, deregulation and neo-liberal globalisation was matched by the Commission’s marked reluctance to pursue the proposals made last year, despite their commendable nature, and by the explicit decision to make the environmental pillar a sort of almost covert addendum to the Barcelona agenda. Indeed, we feel that the Commission communication to the Spring European Council in Barcelona fails to take sufficient account of the environmental factor or of the crucial need for certain changes to the current economic development model. This is serious because it is evidence of the inability of the European institutions to ensure any sort of continuity in their pursuit of priorities established by common agreement, which clearly cannot be reshuffled every six months to suit the political preferences of the Presidency-in-Office. This is why we feel that the Spanish Presidency’s intention to speed up the process of liberalisation in the most diverse sectors is in direct conflict with the sustainable development strategy. We have many doubts regarding the economic and social model based on deregulation, flexibility and further liberalisation of the internal market, as recently confirmed by Mr Blair and Mr Berlusconi in their joint statement, which, it is no coincidence, made absolutely no reference to sustainable development. We are particularly saddened by this in view of the meeting due to take place in Johannesburg, where all the world’s Heads of State will meet to assess the environmental situation 10 years on from Rio de Janeiro. However, we do feel that the Barcelona Summit should be treated as an opportunity to make substantial progress in incorporating environmental issues into the European Union’s policy package and, to this end, it is vital that we assess and review all the sectoral strategies. I would like to touch briefly on the issue of energy efficiency, Mr President, which is an area that is clearly still extremely problematic. In this context, we feel that it is essential to reiterate the importance of renewable energies. Of course, we are also completely opposed to the increasing pressure, not least from the Spanish Presidency, to reopen the debate on nuclear energy, for it is dangerous and outdated in terms of both acceptance by society and environmental sustainability. In other words, Mr President, we fear that Barcelona will be a wasted opportunity from the point of view of achieving the agreed sustainable development goals. We hope fervently that we are wrong and we look forward to meeting again to review the situation after the Barcelona Summit.

Political group: Verts-ALE