Madam President, Commissioner Dimas, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we need a public debate on our economic and employment policy objectives and the reform measures they call for, and one that is much more in-depth than that currently going on in the Member States and at European level. For an example of how to debate economic and employment policies, we should take the debate about the Stability and Growth Pact, a subject about which there was far more public debate than there has been about the economic and employment guidelines. I also want to put the case for a greater role for the Commission in economic and employment policy, and I urge it to make more use of its right of initiative, rather than hiding behind the unanimity required of votes in the Council. Thirdly, I would like to see an end to unanimity in all economic and employment matters affecting the internal market, which would make it possible for Parliament to exercise its power of codecision and unleash new dynamism. Let me also draw your attention – and particularly that of the left wing in this House – to the whole catalogue of economic and employment policy principles in the new Constitution. In it, rather than setting social policy at odds with the market, we affirm our belief in the social market economy, in sustainability and in full employment; we do not play the various areas off against each other, for they are all mutually dependent and mutually complementary. The competitiveness of enterprises is dependent on the skills of employer and employee, as well as on the stability of the currency and on the low level of inflation associated with it. It is on competitive businesses that growth depends, and without growth there are no jobs, and employment is the precondition for social cohesion. If we communicate this, in these terms, to the public and know ourselves bound by these basic principles and by this interaction, this reciprocity, then we will be able to implement the guidelines all the more efficiently. The fact is that we have to get stuck in to the job with greater earnest and greater determination. We cannot, we must not, have a situation in which internal market directives are not transposed. We cannot, we must not, have a situation in which the Commission has over a thousand infringement proceedings pending against Member States. We cannot, we must not, allow Member States to justify breaching the Stability and Growth Pact by saying that, by so doing, they wanted to do something for growth and employment. If that were the case, then Germany would have the highest proportion of people in work; instead, it has the highest proportion of people out of it. In bringing this speech to a close, let me ask what our weaknesses are. They lie in our structure, in our lack of dynamism, in rigidity and over-regulation, and in population change. Where do our opportunities lie? We have them in enlargement, in the concept of the internal market, in small and medium-sized businesses, in the skills of our workers, in the Lisbon strategy, in the euro and in the social dialogue. Let us take these objectives and make them into action plans and timetables! Let us apply more seriousness and determination to the task of doing away with our weaknesses and seizing our many chances, which are still, like treasure, buried and waiting to be brought to the surface.

Political group: PPE-DE