Climate change, energy security, cutting red tape, demographic changes and increasing research spending, all featured in the concluding session of the 3rd Joint Parliamentary Meeting on the Lisbon Strategy. European Commission President Josι Manuel Barroso joined the meeting of members of the European Parliament and members of the national parliaments of the member states.
It was, after the meetings in 2004 and 2005, the third Joint Parliamentary Meeting to discuss the future of the Lisbon strategy. The original aim of this strategy, making the EU into the world’s most competitive and dynamic economy by 2010, was adopted by the Summit of Government Leaders in Lisbon in 2000. The results at the halfway stage were disappointing and the strategy was refocused and relaunched at the Summit in 2005.
The commitment of national parliamentarians is essential in meeting the aims of the Lisbon Strategy: increasing growth and jobs while maintaining a sustainable environment and social protection, since most of the areas where change is needed require decisions at national level. Many of the measures agreed at the Summits were not legislative but intergovernmental, based on coordination and benchmarking among the EU member states, with the European Commission and the EP in a bystanders’ role. But some did require European legislation, with the EP playing a key part as joint legislator.
The 3rd Joint Parliamentary Meeting, co-chaired by EP President Pφttering and the President of the German Bundestag Lammert, focused on three key areas: sustainable energy, the internal market and innovation, and human capital (education, job creation and social aspects).
Since the start of the Lisbon Strategy a range of economic legislation has been adopted, mainly aimed at the liberalisation of markets in various goods and services. The European Parliament has generally sought to balance this liberalisation with measures to protect consumers, employees, the environment and basic public services. Members of the EP called for greater emphasis on job-creation and the needs of the poorer sections of the population.
Barroso optimistic about US and China
Mr. Barroso, President of the European Commission, also spoke about the need to balance competitiveness and social rights. He said that it is possible to ’have a flexible and business friendly Europe while having social standards’. To achieve this goal, he said, it is necessary to introduce social safety nets, ‘not to protect uncompetitive jobs, but to protect people’. In the opinion of the Commission’s President Europe was currently experiencing growth with job creation. The EU economy was growing at the fastest rate since 2000 and unemployment was at the lowest level since 1998. For Mr. Barroso this meant it was time to accelerate reforms at both EU and national level, also aiming to reduce the economic gap among member states. National parliaments, together with the European Parliament, could, he said, represent a ‘parliamentary movement for change’.
‘There is a continual need to explain that the economic reforms of the Lisbon Strategy are the best way to respond to globalisation’, Mr. Barroso said. On climate change, he was optimistic that opinions were shifting, ‘We want to engage others. I believe the Americans will change, and I have discussed this with President Bush… I believe the US is more receptive than ever, the administration is moving, they recognise the challenge of the situation. There is growing awareness in Congress and in society, China too will move. They understand the serious challenges for their own environment!.
