Mr President, Mr Prodi, when a parliament discusses legislative priorities then everything becomes a priority. As far as I am concerned, the top priorities are: employment – and, consequently, economic growth – and quality of life – and therefore environmental protection, food safety and consumer rights. I should now like to make a few comments on economic and social matters. One of the Commission’s initiatives, which deserves a high priority, is the e-Europe initiative. Yesterday we discussed the Lisbon Summit for the economic and social revival of Europe. Shared objectives for growth in order to enable us to move towards full employment are something I have hoped and prayed for. Full employment does not mean the total absence of any form of unemployment. There will always be some cyclical unemployment, with workers looking to change jobs, young people entering the labour market. But full employment will be restored when there are no longer any long-term unemployed and when every young person is offered at least one training course within at least six months of entering the job market. It is possible if we invest to a greater extent in what Mr Guterres yesterday called ‘human capital’, i.e. basic education plus, most importantly, lifelong training. In this context, the e-Europe initiative comes at just the right moment. In future, the computer-related content of jobs is going to be increasingly marked, but we have a lack of workers qualified in this area, as do the United States. That is why the American Senate has made available a quota of almost 500 000 visas for a period of four years, reserved for highly qualified immigrant workers. What we should be doing is educating our own intelligent young people and keeping them in Europe. A Commission document has just shown that half of the young people who pursue postgraduate studies in the United States go on to stay there. In order to keep our brainpower, to attract the best brains and to train them further, we must make massive investments in research and development. The only two European countries who invest a greater share of their GDP in research and development than the United States, i.e. Finland and Sweden, are also the only two European countries who are able to compete on equal terms with the Americans in terms of communication technologies. Surely this provides the rest of Europe with an example to be followed? In Lisbon, should we not establish a sort of technological convergence criterion requiring Member States, for example, within a five year period, to move towards a rate of expenditure on research and development equivalent to at least 2.5% of their GDP? This is still less than the level currently attained by the United States? In this connection, I should also like to applaud Commissioner Philippe Busquin’s initiative to create a European research area. Improved living conditions, employment and the quality of employment will continue to be intimately linked to our ability to make European research more dynamic. Along the same lines, a proper European patent, the development of venture capital and support for young businesses are also of crucial importance. Last night President Prodi reiterated my expression regarding Europe’s lack of future prospects. I am afraid that he misunderstood what I meant to say: I did not accuse the Portuguese Presidency or the Commission of lacking insight, but I did stress the fear of the future experienced by many of our fellow citizens in this radically changing world. We all know that we are living through a paradigm shift with the advent of the information society and the development society. But, in a world where 1.5 billion people are still living without electricity, providing every citizen in the world with access to the Internet society is not going to be achieved in the immediate future. The most significant challenge for the human race is to avoid the separation between information-rich countries and information-poor countries, to prevent the advent of societies where, in the felicitous phrase coined by my friend, Claude Desama, the digital divide will be the new social divide.

Political group: PSE