"The devil is still in the detail," he stressed, speaking in Brussels yesterday (14 October), at a conference organised by the think tank Friends of Europe.
Van Rompuy made clear that stricter budgetary compliance and stronger debt sustainability was not enough.
Better monitoring of countries' macro-economic development with the creation of a common early warning system that will check the risk of real-estate bubbles or unsustainable patterns of development was equally important.
"Good balance sheets are not enough: competitiveness problems have been neglected for the past decade and are as important as budgetary choices," he said.
Most observers concur that unless President Van Rompuy is capable of creating the consensus to come up with a system that obliges member states to respect budgetary rules, markets will lose confidence. "That will be the beginning of the end of the European project," said one speaker.
Awaiting economic governance…
For the president of the European Council, EU countries have learned the lessons of the crisis and are making the right social, economic and structural reforms to restore confidence in the euro.
Dismissing claims of short-termism, Van Rompuy explained that EU governments are in crisis-survival mode and that requires prompt action.
Referring to rigorous austerity measures implemented across the EU, he underlined the need for gradual fiscal consolidation which does not hamper economic growth.
"If institutions don't act, the financial markets will do it for them," he said.
To those calling for a fiscal union can save the euro, President Van Rompuy was quick to answer that the solution lay in convergence.
"We have an economic and monetary union, but in fact we have a monetary unity with the euro and an economic union. What we need is convergence of economic development and economic policy," he said.
Investing in education, enhancing competitiveness and innovation and deepening the common market are the major pillars of long-term recovery, according to policymakers in Brussels.
The 'Europe 2020' strategy, launched by the Commission last June, is living proof of such thinking. Indeed, the European Council meeting has put innovation strategies atop the agenda for its meeting in December.
Smart jobs to boost competitiveness
But listen to businesspeople and it becomes clear that the 10-year EU strategy is flawed.
According to Vittorio Colao, Vodafone chief executive, the 'Europe 2020' strategy needs to become a real platform for the future if it is to be sold to European citizens.
For that to happen, the EU must create smart employment, he stressed. "The EU was successful in creating a generation of EU students, now it has to create a generation of EU workers," he argued.
Colao reckoned that 15-16 million smart jobs could be created in sectors like ICT, engineering, health, chemistry and the life sciences. "We could have a single European labour market," he said, stressing that this could hold the key to boosting intelligence in all jobs, including farming.
Capital at low cost
However, to create jobs and allow new entrepreneurs to come of age, private sector representatives are convinced that the right conditions need to be created to raise capital at low cost.
According to Dominique Cerutti, president and deputy CEO of NYSE Euronext, start-ups in the US are able to create 3-4 million jobs. 90% of that job creation occurs after the Initial Public Offering (IPO).
"We can crate millions of jobs by creating the right conditions in the capital markets to achieve that, rather than being distracted by other ideas, like the transaction tax," he said.
Cerutti stressed there is a clear need for Europe to regain the confidence of financial markets and that can be achieved by increasing transparency, reducing fragmentation and increasing the responsibility of market players.
Lamenting the growing opacity of financial markets, Cerutti said the time had come to convince big players there to move closer to the real economy. "There will be no winners if we don't tackle opacity," he said.
