Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, Mr García Margallo’s report, which I consider to be an important contribution to the development of effective coordination of the Union’s economic and social policies, starkly exposes the shortcomings which have characterised the drawing up of the broad economic and social policy guidelines in recent years. On the one hand, there has for too long been no attempt to establish a proactive policy that can combat the trends towards stagnation and recession which are still raging through many of the Union’s economies. On the other hand, to say the least, the principle of streamlining and coordinating employment policies through the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines has been belatedly recognised. Moreover, the goal of achieving the strategy laid down in Lisbon in 2000 and the related structural reforms by 2010 has been included in what seems as yet to be a rather ill-defined fashion. We must not underestimate the progress made, but it must be stressed that we now need to overcome the delays and ambiguities, providing for effective coordination of Member States’ economic, employment and environment policies by establishing a proper calendar setting out the intermediate steps for achieving the Lisbon and Gothenburg objectives by 2010, particularly with regard to public investment in the research, education and lifelong training sectors and a European network of essential services, starting with transport and telecommunications. Moreover, we also need to set up an institutional coordinating structure in the euro area so that – as stated in Mr García Margallo’s report – the euro area has a single representative in all the international economic and financial institutions. Lastly, we need, for the euro area too, to define the phases of an economic, social and environment policy which is also compatible with the Lisbon strategy and with flexible management of the Stability and Growth Pact. As of 2004, these measures should become the core of the Broad Economic Policy Guidelines and the new goals for enhancing flexible management of the Stability and Growth Pact. In this regard, I would stress that we need to avoid general formulae and great ambiguity: not all economic policies can both satisfy the Lisbon and Gothenburg criteria and respect the constraints of the Stability and Growth Pact in terms of public deficit and government debt, even in the event that the Pact is managed more flexibly, as proposed by the Commission – whose efforts we appreciate – particularly in this current phase of virtual stagnation. In other words, the Commission cannot ignore the fact that a discrepancy of 3% with regard to the minimum objective of 60% of government debt is due to an increase in current expenditure, or maybe to tax cuts across the board, or to a policy of boosting public and private investment – for example, in research, in training, in retraining workers of retirement age who wish to continue working – especially considering that such investment is recognised, formally recognised, by the Commission itself as an objective of common interest. The same priorities should be pursued, as Commissioner Solbes said, in periods of growth too, when the conditions are created for greater compatibility between the broad economic and employment policy guidelines and the parameters of the Stability Pact, which is also – and the Central Bank itself must not forget this – a Pact which should seek to increase income and employment and, after Lisbon, to bring about full employment and social cohesion.

Political group: PSE