Jerzy BUZEK, EP President, and Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of the European Council, opn the session of the European Parliament of Enterprises, in Brussels.

Brussels

speech

BUZEK, Jerzy (EPP, PL)

EU trade policy (T)

VAN ROMPUY, Herman (BE)

European Parliament of Enterprises: extracts from the keynote speeches of Jerzy BUZEK, EP President, and Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of the European Council

SOUNDBITE (English), Jerzy Karol BUZEK, EP President, Everything what is happening in the European Parliament, in the European Commission, is thinking about our today situation, how to improve it. Because we know that we are in crisis; sometimes being in crisis could be helpful because we can easier decide on some reforms and they are always necessary: reforms thinking about business but first of all about our citizens because we are working all of us for our citizens and for our activity. The most important social economic challenge that EU faces today is how to get the 23 million unemployed back to work and saying more specifically how to get the youth employed.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jerzy Karol BUZEK, EP President, But we need your help. Business and industry, we say very often is the backbone of our economy; I would like to say much more, business and industry is as a matter of fact the Economy itself, and get to gather our policy towards you right, would help us to get the jobs we need.

SOUNDBITE (English), Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of European Council, The European Union should now mobilise the same resource to address the economic challenges we are facing. That is our task. For that, we also need you, you the business world. Entrepreneurship is a driving power in Europe. And let me mention 2 priorities: preventing another such crisis (first priority) and stimulating structured economic growth (second priority).

SOUNDBITE (English), Herman VAN ROMPUY, President of European Council, And we -inside the taskforce- have an agreement on the main points; we will finish our work next week but we have agreement on the main points. First point: stricter compliance of the rules through a new set of financial and political sanctions. Second point: stronger focus on public debt sustainability. These two things should help to keep public expenditure in check. Third priority: we will also monitor countries to make economic development, more closely, for instance with the creation of an early warning system detecting the risk of a real state bubbles or of unsustainable patents on the balance of payments.