EUROPEAN UNION: Leaders Set 10-Year Goal to Surpass the US

By Mario de Queiroz Reprint | | Print |

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Mar 24 2000 (IPS) - The European Union (EU) will economically outshine the United States within 10 years, according to the goal set by the European bloc’s three presidents and 15 prime ministers during a two-day meeting in the Portuguese capital.

The heads of state came up with a strategy to turn the EU into “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion,” according to the communique released Friday.

Presidents Jacques Chirac of France, Tarja Halonen of Finland, Jorge Sampaio of Portugal and Romano Prodi of the European Commission, along with each of the EU member-nations’ prime ministers, gathered Thursday and Friday in Lisbon, currently home to the EU’s rotating presidency.

The EU summit set parameters for the transition to a knowledge- based economy, including the promotion of economic reforms designed to increase competitivity and innovation, with heavy emphasis on the technological revolution.

But the meeting’s final document underscored that the EU will always keep in mind the renovation of the European social model, investing in its people and fighting social exclusion, unlike, it said, the United States.

As the summit drew to a close, Portugal’s prime minister Antonio Guterres said, on behalf of his colleagues, that the EU “faces a true revolution in the way it works,” and that its new attitude represents the triumph of prioritising the social-political over the economic-financial.

Prodi, at a press conference closing the summit, said during the Lisbon summit “many objective decisions were made that are going to have an enormous impact on the future of the EU.”

They involve “giving people access, especially young people, to new technologies,” said the president of the European Commission, the EU’s executive body.

The summit called on Europe’s governments to approve increases in per capita investment in human resources this year and to pass national and community laws to set up a legal framework for electronic commerce, or Internet trade.

In the social realm, the main issue of this special session – known as the “Employment Summit” – the leaders decided to initiate some basic measures that would put the EU on the forefront in educating its citizens, from childhood through adulthood.

“In order for Europe to take a big step toward becoming the world’s most developed economy it must bet heavily on education,” stressed Guterres, a socialist and current EU president.

To achieve these objectives, Guterres convinced his EU colleagues to accept the idea of turning schools and education centres – all connected to the Internet – into multi-functional local learning centres that are accessible to all.

This system would be created through close co-operation between teaching and research centres, promoting equal opportunities and creating new sources of employment.

Before the end of the year, the EU should adopt “adequate measures” for eradicating poverty in Europe, that have a real impact in the fight “against social exclusion and unemployment,” says the document signed by the heads of state.

The leaders invited the European Commission to “develop priority actions targeting specific vulnerable groups,” including ethnic minorities, children, the elderly and the physically and mentally challenged.

The final document also reaffirmed the bloc’s priorities of openness, democracy and freedom, and its systematic rejection of xenophobic and racist attitudes.

The upper ranks of the EU proposed to achieve the full integration and liberalisation of its telecommunications markets by the end of 2001, with reduced costs for local Internet access to be in place by the end of this year.

On this point, the leaders recommended Internet access and multimedia resources for all EU schools by the year 2001 and teachers trained to utilise these computer tools before 2002.

The final summit document also recommends developing Internet contacts among the EU nations’ research centres to attract private investment, and creating high-tech firms through fiscal policies and the support of the European Investment Bank (EIB).

The communique underscores that the EU will facilitate, with the help of the EIB, the creation of a high-speed trans-European network for scientific communication.

The summit participants also agreed to earmark funds for the creation of new high-tech firms and micro-businesses, in addition to other venture capital initiatives suggested by the EIB.

Before the end of the year, the European leaders intend to establish a strategy for eradicating obstacles for the service sector and design a fully operational single market in the areas of transportation and energy.

They agreed to take the steps necessary to ensure that by 2003 the bloc can make its acquisitions over the Internet as a way to encourage competition and reduce government assistance, and achieve the streamlining of public finances in the long term.