Social Europe, innovation and globalisation issues are the topics the EU summit should address in order to win back support for the European project, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and the French President Jacques Chirac agree.
The British prime minister and the French president addressed many of the same issues. While both Mr. Blair and Mr. Chirac seem to agree not to re-open the stalled talks on the EU’s mid-term budget perspective at Hampton Court, analysts agree that the so-called financial perspective will be the subnote of the Council. The table below is a comparison of both statesmen’s views on some central issues:
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| Europe’s social model | “[We] we need to make far greater progress on what I might call the demographic or work-life balance issues. Now here it is not appropriate for the European Union to be engaged in substantial bouts of extra regulation and so on, but here is where the open method of co-ordination could work properly – in things like work-life balance, in childcare, and provision for people to be able to raise their family and work at the same time, in how we get the best practice in pension and social security systems across Europe. | “[Europe’s] model is the social market economy, alliance of liberty and solidarity, with the public authority safeguarding the public interest. The society Europe strives for is centred on human dignity. Were we to give up this ideal we would betray our heritage. France will therefore never let Europe become a mere free-trade area. We want a political and social Europe rooted in solidarity.” |
| Research and development |
“We need both to make sure that more of the European budget is spent on those priority areas if those are the future areas for the European economy, and we also need to co-ordinate better how we do the work in these areas. We propose specifically a European Research Council that is the equivalent of the American National Science Foundation, that will support the funding of research and development projects and gives us the chance in Europe to be forming the world beating companies in the technologies of the future.” “Our proposal is that we task the Commission specifically on coming back and reporting to the European Council next year on the challenge facing European universities, how we compete with the United States, how we get more public-private partnership into sustaining them […]” |
“[Europe] must increase innovation and research to support tomorrow’s jobs. Germany and France have launched major programmes in the most promising sectors. I suggest we extend this approach throughout Europe. Such efforts require further funding. France’s proposal is to mobilise the European Investment Bank to double community research capabilities. Let us set up with the bank an instrument endowed with €10bn which, by leveraging public and private co-funding, will generate an additional €30bn in research and innovation projects up to 2013.” |
| Energy and the environment | “I believe it is time that we developed within Europe a common European energy policy. […] This should focus, not on new regulatory barriers, but rather on obtaining a genuinely open energy market. […] Secondly, we like other major countries in the world, should be prepared to enter into dialogue at a European level with key suppliers of energy, use our collective weight to make our voice heard […]” |
“We are now moving into the post-oil and global warming period. Beyond implementing the Kyoto protocol, we must devise together a revolution in our way of life and production methods: energy supplies, transport systems, industry, housing and urban planning. France will submit a memorandum on these issues early next year.” |
| Challenges and threats of globalisation | “[The] Globalisation Fund […] should […] protecting and helping people in circumstances where restructuring has made them redundant or given them difficulties within the labour market. Now to take an example from the UK recently where we had the Rover works, where thousands of people were made redundant, we didn’t stop the restructuring because it was necessary I am afraid economically, even though tragic for the individuals involved, but we did provide real help with retraining, reskilling, finding new jobs around the workforce in order to protect, not the job, but the individual. “ |
“Europe must defend its interests at the World Trade Organisation. The Union, which is already the world’s leading importer of agricultural products from developing countries, has shown its commitment to success by reforming the Common Agricultural Policy. It is now time for our partners to make equivalent proposals in a spirit of give and take, in agriculture as well as in manufacturing and services.” |
| Migration | “We need both to make sure that we have the proper controls on illegal immigration, at the same time as recognising that controlled migration can actually bring a benefit to our European economies. One of the papers that we publish today […] points out how ironically those countries that have opened their labour markets to those from the accession countries,[…] have actually benefited economically from that opening up. Now I think we need to take those lessons further.” | “People would not leave their countries if they had access to a decent living. […] We must endow co-development projects, for example, by providing innovative funding at European level. The second date is the December European Council. To restore confidence in the Union’s workings, we must agree on the 2007-2013 European budget.” |
| Future model for Europe | “We came to the point a few months ago where as a result of the No votes in the referendums, there was a sense that Europe was in paralysis. If we want to get Europe moving again, and in the correct direction, then we have to agree both what that direction is and the specific measures to get us there. […] If we are able to do that then we will at least have made a start on putting Europe back together again, on the right track and moving forward. | (On the stalled constitutional ratification process) “Meanwhile, we could think of improving the workings of the institutions within the framework of the existing treaties, especially in economic governance, domestic security and foreign and defence policy.” |