EU needs grand social pact to emerge from recession: Spain

Strasbourg (France), Jan 21 (IANS/EFE) The European Union needs a “grand social pact” between business and labour to ensure recovery from the recession, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has said in a speech to the European Parliament here.

Zapatero travelled to Strasbourg to outline Wednesday his agenda for Spain’s six month term in the EU presidency, which began Jan 1.

The programme was largely embraced by centrists and socialists in the parliament, while conservative members expressed doubts.

One of the sceptics questioned Madrid’s fitness to chart EU economic strategy when Spain is suffering from nearly 20 percent unemployment.

“If tomorrow the jobless rate rises in your country, whoever governs, my response as head of government and as a pro-European would be one of support and solidarity and not of recrimination, as you have done,” Zapatero replied.

“If we don’t take advantage of the synergy represented by (the EU’s) 500 million citizens, its tens of thousands of capable firms and its millions of workers… we will not be the authentic protagonists of the future in this scenario of globalisation; we will be spectators, not protagonists,” the Spanish premier said.

He argued for more coordination of economic policy among the bloc’s 27 member-states, one of the planks of the Strategy 2020 that is supposed to be adopted during Spain’s EU presidency to replace the decade-old Lisbon Agenda.

The European Commission must also be given new tools to avert a repeat of 2008’s financial meltdown, Zapatero said.

Without a common economic policy, he said, the EU will fall behind rising powers such as China and India.

Zapatero said that a bloc-wide social pact between business and labour can be a force for stability in future crises and a “great lever” for attaining the economic goals the EU has set for itself.

The Spanish prime minister said Europe can advance toward a competitive and sustainable economy by launching an EU project to create a viable electric car and by establishing a true single market in energy.

Turning from economic issues, Zapatero said Spain would work in a “loyal and collaborative” manner with the EU’s permanent president and foreign policy representative, both appointed last month to fill the new posts created by the Lisbon Treaty.

He also pledged that EU aid to earthquake-stricken Haiti “will be at level demanded by the circumstances”.

–IANS/EFE