Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Mr President of the Commission, we should indeed not underestimate the significance of the next Brussels summit, or the effect that it will have. The public will take a sceptical view of this Europe of ours for as long as they feel that nothing, or virtually nothing, is being done to provide them with more jobs. They will also take a sceptical view of the European Union for as long as they do not see investment in their infrastructure, sufficient to modernise it and to make our continent more competitive. Not merely economic but also psychological factors are involved in restoring to Europe the courage and determination it will need to be a leading continent. Mr President-in-Office of the Council, you said that there is to be more investment in infrastructure and in research and development. In ECOFIN, the finance ministers have once again got cold feet. Mr Watson may be happy with that, but I am not, and I hope that the prime ministers will get the better of their finance ministers when it comes to real investment in the modernisation of infrastructure. You referred to the market in electricity. Does not our liberalisation of the electricity market without ensuring sufficient investment, especially in the grid, create a problem? We will now have the same problem with the railways. We have decided to deregulate them, and are in the process of putting together a second railways package, which will mean cutting tariffs and prices. If, however, we do not at the same time require the public sector – and, where possible, the private sector – to invest in the railway network, we will see the same thing happen as has happened in Great Britain, where too little investment has meant also too little investment in people’s safety, more accidents and hence a discredited public sector. At the end of the day, I believe, it has to be made abundantly clear that this is not about jeopardising the Stability Pact. If anything today endangers the Stability Pact, it is the rigidly dogmatic interpretation of it, which leads the public to see it as a bad thing. If it is applied intelligently, sensibly and flexibly, in the way that the President of the Commission has called for on many occasions, without it taking us back to a massive Budget deficit, then that will be the Stability Pact’s salvation, as the budgets that are currently at risk are not in that position through too much being invested in the countries in question; many of them are at risk from excessive consumer spending. Investment, though, would make for increased growth. Let me just say something brief about foreign policy. Reference has already been made to the situation in the Middle East, and it will be further discussed tomorrow. I believe that the Council, and the European Union as a whole, must unambiguously repudiate terrorism and make that clear to any and every country that flirts with it – which is not always to say that they support it, but that they tolerate it. It must, though, be made equally plain to Israel that it must not perpetuate the cycle of violence or even, perhaps, set one in motion. Recent months have seen quite enough acts of aggression in the Middle East, founded on the assertion that there were dangerous weapons here, weapons of mass destruction there, and terrorism somewhere else still, all of which has often turned out to be untrue. We have to make it perfectly clear to Israel that, while we endorse its firm commitment to self-determination and to countering terrorism, it too has a contribution to make towards achieving peace. If I may make a final comment, you said nothing about Russia and Chechnya. Chechnya has just had elections that were a farce, and I think we also need to speak plain language to Russia, which is an important partner for the European Union. Your prime minister, Mr Berlusconi, thinks highly of Mr Putin, he is a friend of his and gives him very warm welcomes. At the same time, though, Mr Berlusconi is not inclined to mince his words. I believe that Mr Berlusconi should tell Mr Putin quite bluntly that we cannot put up with what is going on in Chechnya. This is the time for Russia, too, to work out a policy for bringing peace to Chechnya. IN THE CHAIR: MR DIMITRAKOPOULOSVice-President

Political group: PSE