By Elinor Blair - 2nd February 2005
José Manuel Barroso’s bid to breathe new life into the EU’s economy received a mixed political response from group leaders in the European Parliament.
The commission chief’s plans to revitalise Europe’s sluggish economic growth places business interests at the core of policy with social and environmental concerns taking second place.
Those from Barroso’s own centre-right politics embraced the commission proposals which were unveiled in the parliament today (Wednesday).
German EPP leader, Hans-Gert Poettering MEP enthusiastically supported Barroso’s proposals saying that Europe needed an investment-friendly climate and that the commission was sending out the right signals.
European socialist president Poul Nyrup Rasmussen expressed concern about the plans: “Today I see lots of talk of flexibility but nothing real on security in labour markets. We need to combine flexibility and security…this will not be done by mimicking the American approach.”
He said that a failure to include environmental and social concerns would be “counterproductive and frankly myopic”.
Socialist MEP Robert Goebbels added, “the Barroso agenda fails to pay sufficient attention to macroeconomic measures including investment and the need to reform the EU's stability and growth pact.”
Liberal leader Graham Watson met the proposals with a guarded welcome.
“We need decisive action if Europe is not to become a museum piece of economic good intention,” he said.
"National governments must take responsibility and national parliaments must feel ownership of the Lisbon strategy, if we are to be able to fund our pensioners, create new jobs and clean up our environment," said Watson.
“At the moment we are stuck in second gear and struggling to find the momentum,” he added.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit of the Greens was stronger in his criticism arguing that the proposals were “depressingly reminiscent of the Thatcher years.”
He said that the proposals would be unable to solve Europe’s economic stagnation and that the commission was shirking its responsibility to EU citizens.
“The commission is reverting to one-dimensional policies that have already proved unable to solve the problems we face,” said Cohn-Bendit.
“We need a comprehensive macro-economic approach including demand-side policies and labour-friendly tax systems. Instead we are offered a supply-side solution that devolves responsibility to the member states,” he suggested.
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