07/09/2013
_ “The European Union needs a strategic anchorage and to revise its long term objectives”, avoiding “an excessive short-termism”
_ “The banking union, the free trade agreement with the United States, the single market and the energetic policy must be the pillars of the European strategy”
_ He says that those pillars are already product of consensus between the member countries, and invokes “political will to implement them fully”
_ LLetta, Van Rompuy, Lagarde and Trichet were some of the participants
José María Aznar, former Prime Minister of Spain and President of FAES Foundation, participated on Saturday, September 7 in the 39th edition of the Ambrosetti Forum in the Italian town of Cernobbio, where he stated that “we need sound economies with few and low taxes where private initiative and free competition are the drivers of growth and job creation.” Aznar also claimed that “the banking union, the free trade agreement with the United States, the single market and the energetic policy must be the pillars which support the long term European strategy.”
Aznar, who has participated in this prestigious forum for ten consecutive years, made these statements during his participation in a discussion panel about employment as the driving force to recover European competition. “Private investment is going to lead the way out of the crisis. This does not mean that the State does not have a role to play, the public sector must align with the interests of society”, he stated.
MAXIMUM COMMITMENT
According to Aznar, “Europe needs to find new sources of growth and requires the greatest political commitment to face its economic challenges immediately and explicitly. Aznar mentioned some of the challenges: indebted, barely competitive and very rigid economies; an insufficient institutional architecture which has led to the fragmentation of the financial markets; and new emerging powers that challenge the role played by Europe during the last centuries.
For that reason, “the European Union needs a strategic anchorage and to revise its long term objectives”, avoiding “an excessive short-termism.” In this respect, he mentioned the pillars that have to support the European strategy: advancing toward a banking union which implies a common resolution mechanism and supervision as well as a pan-European deposit guarantee fund; concluding the free trade and investment agreement with the United States to revitalise the leadership of both regions; deepening the European single market; and consolidating a true European energetic policy.
Aznar stated that “the common denominator of these pillars is that they have been a product of consensus and agreements between the member countries”, and he pointed out the need to “invoke the political will to implement them fully.”
Enrico Letta, Prime Minister of Italy, Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council, Christine Lagarde, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Jean-Claude Trichet, former President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Joaquín Almunia and Antonio Tajani, vice-Presidents of the European Commission, Mario Monti, former Prime Minister of Italy and John McCain, United States Senator, also participated in this edition of the Ambrosetti Forum.