As at Spring Summits in recent years, this meeting of Heads of State and Government will focus on economic issues and on the Lisbon Strategy in particular.
Of course, we are delighted that this year's Spring Summit comes at a time when key economic statistics are upbeat and the employment markets are experiencing an upward trend.
We have reached the cautious conclusion that the Lisbon Strategy is beginning to bear fruit, but we are also convinced that it would be entirely wrong to just sit back now and do nothing. No, we intend to take advantage of the overall upward trend and the prevalent sense of optimism for further structural reforms; together, we intend to redouble our efforts to build on recent successes and make them sustainable. This is an optimum way of making Europe strong for global competition.
The intense preliminary phase, marked by very close and extremely productive co-operation with the Commission, is over. We have now entered the crucial phase of preparing the European Council on 8-9 March. At the beginning of this week, the General Affairs and External Relations Council discussed the annotated agenda which the German Presidency has drawn up for the European Council. I am pleased to say that the Member States fully support the issues and agenda proposed by the Presidency.
In the coming weeks, the Permanent Representatives Committee (Coreper) will co-ordinate the various contributions from the individual constellations of the Council and work on the draft version of the conclusions reached at the European Council in light of the key messages contained in these contributions. At this point, perhaps I should remind you of the dates on which the individual Council configurations will adopt their conclusions: the Energy Council will convene tomorrow to discuss one of the major issues of this European Council, the Energy Action Plan; the Education and Youth Council will meet the day after, followed by the Competitiveness Council on 19 February and the Environment Council on 20 February. The Council for Employment and Social Policy will meet on 22 February and, finally, the Ecofin Council will convene on 27 February.
Even though the European Parliament is not directly involved in preparations for the European Council, I can assure you that the Presidency will take due account of the positions adopted by the Parliament with regard to the topics on the Council agenda.
With your permission, I would now like to look in more detail at the Presidency's plans for this year's Spring Summit. We will make every effort to ensure that the European Council fulfils its original task: to focus on key issues, to determine a political course, to take forward-looking decisions and to give political guidelines to the relevant bodies at European and national level. Our exchange of views today and then, of course, our intense dialogue with the President of the European Parliament at the European Council are important factors in fulfilling this task.
Therefore, in keeping with these general principles, we have made every effort to ensure that the European Council focuses on issues where it is generally recognized that action needs to be taken and efforts redoubled.
At a more specific level, the European Council will support the structural reforms already initiated in the Member States and promote them by making integrated country-specific recommendations.
With regard to the internal market we want to strengthen our common commitment to close loopholes and identify weak spots, to make the European Union more competitive in relation to third countries and to push ahead to revive the Doha round. We also want to promote innovation, research and education as well as boosting employment and developing the European social model. Key issues here are "flexicurity" and demographic change.
Better regulation is an issue which is important to all of us. There is significant potential here for making the European economy more competitive. That is why reducing bureaucracy is a key issue for the German Presidency. The signals we plan to send out at the European Council are ambitious ones. In concrete terms, our priorities in this area will be to simplify existing legislation and to consider how we can continue to improve the instrument of impact assessment. As the legislating bodies, the Council and the Parliament have a particular responsibility for ensuring that the proposals initiated by the Commission for simplifying legislation are examined closely and dealt with promptly.
Our main concern is to push forward in cutting the costs of bureaucracy, above all by setting clearly quantified objectives.
As was decided last year, the European Council will adopt the comprehensive EU Energy Action Plan which is committed to the Union's three fundamental objectives in this area: security of supply, competitiveness and environmental compatibility. The strategic energy report presented by the Commission in January shows that an energy policy must take all three objectives into account if it is to address the challenges facing the Union. Therefore, we will proactively champion a set of measures which can have the desired effect, but only when implemented together. This package includes measures which will boost competition on the internal energy market, place more emphasis on renewable energy sources and help develop better energy technologies and greater energy efficiency. It is also very important that we place more emphasis on the foreign policy aspect of energy policy. Europe must do more to ensure that it speaks with one voice on energy matters.
An issue inextricably linked to energy is climate protection. In light of the almost unprecedented challenge posed by climate change, we are determined to take ambitious and forward-looking decisions – and set quantified goals – in this area also. The Commission's proposals in this area are fully compatible with its energy proposals, and provide a good basis for doing so. The European Council must make every effort to send out a strong signal about developing the international climate protection regime for the time after 2012. The industrialized nations, led by the EU, must push ahead with ambitious commitment targets and measures. Only then can we expect the emerging economies to be willing to make appropriate commitments of their own to limit their emissions, which have been increasing drastically.
