BRUSSELS, March 14: European Union leaders start meeting in Barcelona, Spain, on Friday on transforming the 15-nation bloc into the new millennium’s most dynamic economic powerhouse.
On the agenda at the two-day summit are a raft of proposals to sweep away national divisions and regulatory morass blamed for stifling European growth.
But vying for attention will also be EU plans to become a more forceful political player on the global stage, with escalating Middle East violence expected to top discussions.
Barcelona summit host Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar is under pressure to get deals on liberalizing EU energy markets, labour market reform and financial market harmonization.
“The process has lost steam,” the prime ministers of Sweden, Finland and Denmark complained last week in a letter to their Spanish host.
EU security chief Javier Solana meanwhile is calling for reform of Europe’s cumbersome decision-making machinery and especially changes in the system of six-monthly rotating presidencies.
Stop focusing on national prestige and look at the bigger picture, Solana says in a report sent to Barcelona.
Few can deny that European efforts to deregulate and liberalize need another push. Despite repeated pleas from the EU Commission, Spain, Italy and Greece are blocking plans for a European patent designed to spur inventors across the EU. The three countries say applications for patents must be made in all 11 EU languages, not just in English, French or German.
France has vetoed opening up residential energy markets to cross-border competition, fearing a backlash from powerful public-sector unions ahead of elections this spring.
Paris has also pushed the deadline for postal market liberalization back to 2009 — and made it nonbinding.
European Commission President Romano Prodi is adamant that energy liberalization will save industry and consumers 15 billion euros a year. Increased financial sector competition, he says, will add 0.5 per cent to the EU’s annual growth rate.
But while leaders make noble promises, these are not always translated into EU-wide legislation.
“There is still a gap between making policy declarations and turning them into practice,” Prodi said.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair has called the Barcelona summit a “make or break” moment for the EU’s economic reform agenda. Blair and Italy’s new conservative premier, Silvio Berlusconi, are jointly calling on European governments to make it easier for businesses to dismiss workers. “In Italy, it’s easier to divorce your wife than let an employee go,” Berlusconi told a German magazine.
Prodi says EU countries can create 20 million new jobs by 2010 but only if they start breaking down rigid labour market codes. “Too many men and women in Europe are idle against their will,” he warned.
Aznar has told summit participants he wants “concrete results which will enable us to achieve the objectives called for by our citizens: more jobs, greater capacity for growth and greater prosperity for all.”
But with the United States clearly in unilateralist mode, Europe is also under pressure to play a more forceful role on the global stage, especially in the Middle East.
“In Barcelona, Europe will show its unity and put all its political and economic strength at the service of peace in the Middle East,” Prodi said. “There is no military solution to this situation,” he insisted.
Diplomats say Middle East issue will get top attention in Barcelona, with the bloc’s leaders expected to throw their collective weight behind Saudi land-for-peace initiative.
The summit will also welcome America’s re-engagement in the region.
