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Opening Speech
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Maria Joao Rodrigues
Representative of the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union, Special Advisor to the Prime Minister for the Portuguese EU Presidency*
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In 2000, during the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union, it was
decided to invite the European leaders and the civil society to discuss and to
launch a long-term strategy for Europe. This was the beginning of a quite important
process of bridging the political agenda of the European Union and
the research agenda, leading to the Lisbon Agenda of the European Union.
At the start of the design of the agenda there were discussions about two choices:
- The first basic choice concerned globalisation where two main positions
existed. We might reject globalisation or accept it unconditionally. We came
up with a third position which is to have a pro-active approach to globalisation
and a framework to shape globalisation.
- The second basic choice concerned competitiveness and social cohesion
because there can be two main positions, too. One is to sacrifice competitiveness
to social cohesion and to environmental concerns. The other one would
be to sacrifice social cohesion and the environment to the competitiveness
goal. In order to overcome this dilemma we adopted again a third position
which is to make a synergy between competitiveness on one hand and social
cohesion and environment on the other hand.
In 2000 this document was prepared, involving scholars and top officials,
and proposed a long-term strategy of the European Union. It was adopted
by the European Prime Ministers in March 2000. After that, the strategy had
to be turned into a practical agenda with many concrete measures forming
several policies: policies for information society, for research, for innovation,
education, environment, social protection. It was quite a wide agenda, which
is meaningful for the discussion of today.
And of course a process of further elaboration began:
- In 2001, Sweden was hosting the Presidency of the European Union.
And Sweden made a major contribution to the Lisbon Agenda because it was
decided to strengthen the environmental pillar. The environmental pillar was
not strong enough in the first formulation of the Lisbon Agenda. Therefore
the European Union formally adopted the goal of improving sustainable development
and the strategy for sustainable development was elaborated.
- In 2002, the main effort was to involve the countries which are now the
new Member States. At that time they were in the accession period and I went
quite often to Poland, to Hungary, to other newcomers to the European Union
to work with these countries in order to adapt the strategy to their conditions.
Their support and their creative role was very important since the beginning
because they understood that this strategy could also be a contribution to the
catching-up process.
- In 2003 we started with a convention to prepare a new Treaty for Europe.
Our main problem in this year was to connect the Lisbon Agenda with the
new Treaty to make sure that we should have the appropriate conditions, in
political terms, to implement the agenda.
- In 2004 the main discussion was about the financial needs, the role of
structural funds in implementing the Agenda, the connection with macroeconomic
policies and so the need to reform the Stability and Growth Pact.
A reform of the Lisbon Agenda was decided upon in 2005. We introduced
a major reform in governance. And this is a message that I would
like very much to underline. We can have a very efficient strategy but if we
don’t have the appropriate mechanisms for governance, there is a risk of nonimplementation.
We should have in mind that this strategy has four main priorities – since
the beginning:
- One is to invest in knowledge, innovation and education as the main
wealth of nations. And this is the best way to reconcile competitiveness and
social conditions.
- The second priority is, of course, to explore new markets: the European
Single Market but also the global markets.
- The third priority is about the social model. The European social model
is a good basis for quality of life in Europe but it is no longer sustainable in
the present conditions. So we need to reform it.
- And the fourth one concerns macroeconomic policies: the need to have
macroeconomic policies which are able to provide sustainable growth.
There was a concern in 2005 to introduce stronger governance instruments
to implement the strategy. And that’s why we have created an instrument for
implementation at the national level called ‘National Reform Programmes.’
The National Reform Programmes have been implemented now in all Member
States with an important change in horizontal coordination at the national
level.
It is very meaningful that in 2006 we again emphasised the priority for
energy as the main issue. Therefore in March 2007 Europe adopted the European
Plan for Energy with ambitious goals such as reducing CO2 emissions
by 30% by 2020 or increase the share of renewable energies to 20% by 2020.
In this development of the strategy we can see a certain tension between
a long-term strategy for development on the one hand and the concern with
the environment and energy. Sometimes this is not easy to combine.
In the official language of the European Union when we speak about ‘sustainable
development’ we are not speaking only about the environment. We
are using the broad concept of sustainable development meaning that we
should combine the economic, social and environmental dimensions of development.
We need to make sure that the coming generations will have the
same conditions that the parent generations enjoyed. Taking into account
this broad concept, in 2005 the European Union adopted an ambitious declaration
for sustainable development which is considered as overarching commitment
to be taken into account in all European policies.
While we continue to develop the Lisbon Agenda further, we should assess
the outcome of the strategy. All the available reports are showing, on the
one hand, that a structural change is taking place in Europe. There are many
reforms in financial markets, in research systems, education systems and social
protection systems and labour markets. But this is not enough taking into
account the pace of change at the global level. There are three isues which we
should discuss:
- The global landscape now is really marked by something powerful,
quite new, which is the emergence of new poles. This means that the competitive
game is more complex with the BRICs. And Europe should take this
into account.
- Ageing trends are pronounced in Europe and this means that it is no
longer enough to increase the employment rate to make our social protection
systems sustainable. We thought it would be enough but now we know this
is no longer enough because behind that we also have a problem of demographic
trends. This means that birth rate is the crucial variable but this also
means immigration policies.
- The evidence of climate change now is so clear and we are very grateful
to the Club of Rome as the first starter pointing out to the problem. This very
year the European Union adopted an ambitious plan for energy policies. And
this had many implications because we know that at the end of the day what
is at stake is to change our patterns of consumption and protection. This is
a big change, not only for companies and public administrations but also for
citizens. And this takes time.
Taking into account this background, it is very likely that the new cycle of
the Lisbon Agenda will put climate change at the very top of concerns, which
means that energy and environmental policies will again be strengthened in
this agenda.
The second priority will be about global markets because we know very
well that what is at stake now is the role of European companies in the global
chains which are now being organised.
The third priority will be about what we call the ‘triangle of knowledge’
because we can see that the main engine for growth is to have a good interface
between research, innovation and education. What we see now is a very
important movement of clustering across Europe. Many clusters are emerging,
combining universities, companies and research institutions. This is a
very positive movement which should be encouraged.
Another priority will be of course about the social area where we need
to combine more flexibility with new kinds of security. The central topic of
discussion today in Europe is a new buzz word which is ‘flexicurity’, combining
flexibility with security. There are many ways to combine them. But
in any case this means a strong investment of Europe in new skills. European
citizens are now moving to new jobs, with new requirements and it is critical
to prepare them for these new jobs, so this means investing in new competences.
We just adopted the European Charta related to basic skills. And one
of the basic skills to be spread all over Europe to all citizens, beginning at very
early ages, is the culture of sustainability because we need, on the one hand,
creative, innovative citizens but, on the other hand, citizens with a culture of
sustainability.
These might be main priorities for the new cycle of the Lisbon Agenda
until 2010, but I suppose that we will have another priority and this is really
new: the need to develop the ‘international dimension.’ An agenda aiming
at combining environmental, social, economic development, all together, is
very difficult and it is not possible for Europe to have success in this agenda
unless our main partners at the international level go in the same direction.
That is why Europe should now be more active in the international arenas to
work with our international partners, all of them but I will point out some
crucial ones: the United States, Japan, all the BRICs, in order to develop this
new global agenda.
Therefore, during the Portuguese Presidency we will have summits with
almost all BRICs. We’ve had one with Brazil, we are preparing another one
with Russia and then we will go on with summits with China and India,
and will end with an important summit with Africa. In all these summits,
which will take place until December 2007, we will start – and this is new
– with a general discussion on global issues, climate change at the top. We
think that Europe should work hard with its international partners to identify
the problems, to present what we are doing in our domestic agendas and
then it will be easier to discuss the tricky issues in international relations, for
instance to renew the Kyoto protocol. We will use this approach to develop a
new kind of strategic partnership with these countries.
Finally, let me conclude with the Treaty because the issue is a top priority
for the Portuguese Presidency. There was a very positive contribution made
by the German Presidency and now we want to conclude this task.
- There are crucial elements in this Treaty to implement ambitious strategies
for sustainable development. The article stating the European political
objectives includes sustainable development which is a clear commitment.
- There is an important clarification of competences: the competences
which belong to the Union, the competences which belong to the Member
States, and the competences which are shared. The environment policy is an
area for shared competences.
- Implementing a strategy for sustainable development is something very
complex regarding co-ordination of public policies and we have new mechanisms
for that in this Treaty, notably a new formation of the Council of Ministers,
called General Affairs Council. We need this body able to make a good
interface between European policies and the national policies.
- The final reason why the Treaty can be useful to implement this strategy
for sustainable development is exactly because of external action. Europe
must have stronger instruments for external action to negotiate, to discuss, to
make partnerships with the other main partner countries at all levels. I saw
this very clearly recently in a summit, the summit with Brazil, where we had
at the other end of the table five people representing Brazil but from the other
side of the table the European Union was represented by 25 people. This is
too much and it is not necessary. It is not a demonstration of strength but
a demonstration of weakness. We need a more co-ordinated external action
and that’s why we’ll have introduced in the Treaty the High Representative of
the European Union who will run, for the first time, the European diplomatic
service. If we achieve that over our presidency, we will achieve our ‘golden
triangle’ which is: to have a new Treaty in order to implement this strategy
for sustainable development and in order to shape globalisation.
* Speech held at the conference "The Future of Europe"
in Vienna in September 2007, the contribution represents the opinion of the speaker and
is not an official statement of the Portuguese EU Presidency.
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