Keeping our guard high

“The Lisbon Strategy for growth and employment has greatly facilitated economic reforms in Europe: especially since it was re-launched in 2005, it has clearly borne fruit”. Nonetheless the “challenges of globalization and the uncertainties” faced by the international markets “do not permit us to lower our guard”. Janez Jansa, Slovene Premier and current President of the European Council, has long insisted on such questions and has now repeated them in a letter of invitation sent to the other 26 heads of state and of government in view of their spring summit.Investing in research and training. The agenda for the summit of 13-14 March, now underway in the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, includes a meeting between the leaders of member states and the President of the European Parliament, followed by specific sessions dedicated to the triennial national plans of the Lisbon Strategy, and issues linked to energy, climate change and the stability of the financial markets. A communication is to be devoted to the French proposal of a Mediterranean Union. European leaders also discussed the investments to be made in research and training with the aim of reinforcing the EU’s “economy of knowledge”, though some preferred to place greater emphasis on issues related to social cohesion, employment and greater coordination of EU policies in these sectors, without detriment to national prerogatives or to the principle of subsidiarity. Criticisms were not lacking on this score, claiming the EU is still proceeding at different speeds from country to country.Labour, energy, financial markets. The discussions of heads of state and of government were preceded in recent weeks by a wide-ranging debate within the EU institutions, culminating with the debate in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday, 12 March. New phase of the Lisbon Strategy, energy question and environment, stability of the bourses and currencies: Janez Lenarci, Slovene Secretary of State for European Affairs, anticipated the main priorities of the summit, which – he said – “is taking place at a time when the international economy is seeking answers”. “The fundamentals of the EU economy are sound – explained the representative of the current Slovene EU Presidency -, but the turbulence of the financial markets has produced instability”. Foreign competition is also growing and “the EU cannot just stand by and watch”. That makes a more effective application of the Lisbon accords at the national level all the more urgent. “We need to bet on the so-called fifth freedom”, explained Lenarcic, as well as on the “historic” freedoms relating to the circulation of persons, goods, capital and services. In other words “Europe needs to promote the free circulation of knowledge and researchers and to boost innovation. In this way we could support small and medium businesses and create jobs”, an essential prerequisite for social cohesion.Combating imbalances, no to protectionism. “A substantial message needs to come out of this summit: namely, that the Lisbon Strategy works”, declared José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, who was present both at the session of the EP in Strasbourg and at the summit in Brussels. He concentrated his remarks on one of the main issues addressed by the EU Council. “We need to recognize that we have now achieved an unemployment rate of 7%, among of the lowest of any period. Over six million jobs have been created over the last few years. Nor is that all: employment is increasing pari passu with the growth of the productivity of businesses. Despite that, we cannot claim to be sheltered from financial instabilities; the price of energy is too high; and at the same time inflation which erodes salaries and pensions is growing”. “Still less can we underestimate the fact that development rates are too different between the nations” and “imbalances exist between the various regions and social categories”: an allusion to the data on female and youth employment, still insufficient in almost all member states and particularly dramatic in some of them. For these reasons, Barroso asks the 27 for operational capacity and “concrete results”. “We must concentrate our efforts on research and innovation, increase the training of the young, and complete the single market so that small and medium businesses have greater chance of selling their own goods. We must protect our economies without succumbing to protectionism”, he said. More employment, but job insecurity grows. Some rather discordant statements have been made by the heads of the political groups in the European Parliament. The French People’s Party exponent Joseph Daul declared: “We are in favour of free trade and the market, but we need to protect the weakest in Europe”. According to the German Socialist Martin Schulz “unemployment is officially declining in the EU, but job insecurity is increasing at a disproportionate rate, and workers’ wages are growing far less than the profits of businesses”. The British Liberal Democrat Graham Watson spoke of a “summit torn between hope and despair”. “The risk of a fortress Europe is emerging” – he said – from the governments of member states.