I attended the European Council on 15 March and 16 March 2002 in Barcelona. I was accompanied by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Cowen, and the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy. The conclusions of the meeting have been laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. The meeting was a successful one in that it built on the work of the past two years in ensuring that progress was being made on the European Union's ambitious ten year Lisbon agenda.
The meeting was also significant from Ireland's point of view in that the European Council welcomed the approach of the Government to the ratification of the Treaty of Nice and reiterated its willingness to contribute in every possible way to supporting the Irish Government in this process. The European Council will come back to this issue at the Seville European Council meeting in June.
The main purpose of our meeting in Barcelona was to examine if the European Union is on track to become, by 2010, the most dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion. This goal, as embodied in the Lisbon agenda, was set two years ago at the European Council meeting in Lisbon. Last year in Stockholm we added a sustainable development pillar to our agenda. The Lisbon agenda rests therefore on three pillars: economic, social and environmental. At Lisbon, European leaders decided to meet every year in the spring to review progress and make any adjustments necessary to reach our ambitious targets. We are now one fifth of the way towards our 2010 target date. By the time Ireland holds the Presidency in 2004, we will be nearly at the half-way mark. In Barcelona, we had a good discussion on the many and varied issues currently on the Lisbon agenda. We took stock of what had been achieved. We set a number of ambitious targets. All of us were aware of the need to take the decisions necessary to ensure increased competitiveness, greater social cohesion and for these to be done in an environmentally sustainable way.
Last Christmas, in advance of Barcelona, the Government gave detailed consideration to the five priorities identified by the Spanish Presidency for the Barcelona Council, and the relevance of these issues to Ireland. In further considering Ireland's contribution to the Barcelona Council, I issued a joint letter to Prime Minister Aznar, with Prime Minister Persson of Sweden, seeking continued action throughout Europe to facilitate the growth and development of small and medium enterprises. Prime Minister Persson and I recognise that the creation of new jobs will largely depend on the development and enhancement of small and medium sized enterprises, and we sought progress in four key areas to assist SMEs: research and development, regulatory reform, entrepreneurship and biotechnology. I also wrote separately to Prime Minister Aznar, outlining Ireland's priority areas for Barcelona, including regulatory reform, research and development, greater labour force participation, social cohesion, and inclusive life-long learning. Both the joint letter with Prime Minister Persson and my letter to Prime Minister Aznar have been laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas.
Barcelona marked the beginning of what I hope will be a long and productive relationship between the European Council and the President of the European Parliament. Pat Cox was very warmly received by the members of the European Council and the conclusions specifically welcomed the president's initiative for political dialogue and pragmatic change. The willingness of the European Parliament to enter into partnership with the Council will make achieving our 2010 goals that much easier. It means that the building blocks needed to reach our targets are being put in place.
I should underline that the Lisbon agenda is not about making dramatic breakthroughs at European Council meetings. The goals we have set will not be reached overnight. The Lisbon agenda is, nonetheless, the framework within which we in Ireland and European Union citizens everywhere will achieve our future prosperity, well-being and quality of life. These are the bread and butter issues of the European Union. They have direct implications for every citizen and every community here in Ireland and throughout Europe. Getting it right means that Europe will prosper and we will prosper in it. Since we agreed the Lisbon agenda two years ago, five million new jobs have been created in the EU. Many of the measures we agreed to take at Lisbon have been implemented or are in the process of being implemented. We successfully launched the euro notes and coins at the beginning of this year marking the culmination of more than ten years of work within the EU. However, our spring meeting this year took place at a time when the world economy has been experiencing a downturn, exacerbated by the events of 11 September and their aftermath. With signs of a recovery in sight, European leaders renewed their commitment to economic reform to increase the potential of the EU for growth and employment.
Europe is going through its own very profound changes. It is expected that the accession negotiations will successfully conclude at the end of this year and that ten new members will join the Union in 2004. It is essential that these new members be fully prepared for the Lisbon agenda. To ensure that this is the case, the leaders of the accession countries attended a meeting with the heads of state or Government in Barcelona. They described their very considerable efforts to give effect to the Lisbon agenda.
The Barcelona European Council was important for people engaged in small business, the backbone of our economic activity. In line with the approach adopted by Ireland, we underlined the fact that entrepreneurship and a well functioning internal market were the keys to growth and job creation. We made the point that the regulatory environment should encourage entrepreneurial activity and make it as simple as possible to set up new business, in particular through the use of the Internet. The forthcoming Commission action plan will give renewed impetus to the regulatory reform agenda at EU level.
Over the two days of the Council, we agreed a wide range of measures. While the measures are too numerous to detail here, I feel a number merit particular mention. We asked member states to speed up the implementation of the European charter for small and medium sized enterprises. This will make it easier for small businesses to do business in Europe by cutting Europe's red tape. We also agreed that full implementation of all internal market legislation was a prerequisite for the proper functioning of the internal market. We agreed to make further efforts to meet a 100% transposition target by the spring European Council in 2003. This will represent a challenge for many member states, including Ireland. However, it is a challenge that is in all our interests to meet. Efforts by all member states in this area must be stepped up.
On the social agenda, the European Council reiterated that the European social model is based on good economic performance, a high level of social protection and education and social dialogue. We underlined that the Lisbon agenda goals can be brought about only by balanced efforts on both the economic and social fronts.
The European Council stressed the importance of the fight against poverty and social exclusion. Member states were invited to set targets in their national action plans for significantly reducing the number of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion by 2010. We agreed that the reform of pension systems should be accelerated and we mandated the Council to examine more thoroughly issues of health care and care for the elderly for next year's spring Council meeting. To encourage the creation of better jobs and more opportunity, we agreed to a reinforced employment strategy and promoting skills and mobility in the European Union. To underline this, we decided that a European health insurance card will replace the current paper forms. The Commission will make a proposal on this before our next spring European Council under the Greek Presidency in 2003. We decided that there should be a one-stop European mobility information website which will be operational by the end of 2003.
For consumers and investors, we gave impetus to the measures in the financial services action plan, setting a target of adopting seven directives this year. Action on these issues is important to give increased choice and lower prices. We agreed that there should be appropriate levels of protection for consumers of financial services. Also of benefit to consumers are the target dates that we set for opening the markets in electricity and gas. Perhaps the one area that received most publicity before the Barcelona European Council was the question of whether a target date could be set to open the gas and electricity sectors. We succeeded in agreeing 2004 as the date for freedom of choice of supplier for all European non-household consumers. We also agreed that before the 2003 spring European Council we would take decisions on further measures taking into account the definition of public service obligations, security of supply and in particular the protection of remote areas. This was a significant development. However, more needs to be done in this area.
Perhaps the greatest challenge facing Europe is the creation of a true knowledge society. The Council marked real progress in this field. In particular, we called for the Commission's e-Europe 2005 action plan to concentrate also on network security and information, e-government, e-learning, e-health and e-business. This issue will come to the Seville European Council this coming June. We called for the sixth research framework programme to be adopted by June 2002. We also agreed that overall spending on research and development and innovation in the European Union should be increased with the aim of approaching 3% of GDP by 2010. Two thirds of this new investment should come from the private sector. This will represent a challenge for a number of member states, including Ireland, where research and development spending by the State has increased dramatically but where there is much more room for private sector spending. In the research and development area, we also underlined the importance of enabling Community business to exploit the potential of biotechnology while taking due account of the precautionary principle and meeting ethical and social concerns. This is another issue we will address at our meeting next year.
The working methods used by the European Council in this area were perhaps the most important facet of the Lisbon agenda addressed at the European Council. In Barcelona, we agreed that the focus of the European Council must be to give key political impetus to the actions crucial to the European Union's long-term objectives. As a result, we agreed that the calendars for the adoption of the broad economic policy guidelines and of the annual employment package should be synchronised. In this way, the European Council will be able to review and, where necessary, adjust the Union's economic, social and environmental policies as a whole.
As Deputies will see, and as I signalled at the start of this statement, the Barcelona European Council conclusions reflect the fact that I outlined to the members of the European Council the Government's approach to the ratification of the Nice treaty, due to be completed by all member states by the end of this year in order to allow enlargement to proceed as planned. I informed our European partners that the Government remained fully committed to enlargement and to the ratification of Nice by the end of the year. I said that there was a general recognition and expectation that a second referendum would be held in the autumn. In the context of whether there was any assistance the European Council could offer, arising from the assurances we received at the Gothenburg European Council last June, I signalled that the Government would be seeking a declaration from the Seville European Council confirming that Ireland's traditional policy of military neutrality was not affected by the treaties. As the conclusions show, the European Council welcomed my approach and reiterated its willingness to contribute in every possible way to supporting us. We will come back to this issue in June in Seville.
While the Minister for Foreign Affairs will address the foreign policy aspects of the Barcelona European Council, I will mention just two issues on the international agenda. First, the Barcelona European Council welcomed the agreement on overseas development assistance, ODA, increases in time for the Monterrey conference on financing for development which is now ongoing. This agreement underlines the European Union's position as the world's major provider for development aid. Of course, we remain committed nationally to the UN target of 0.7% of GNP to ODA by 2007. In addition, we agreed that the Economic and Finance Council will examine other means of debt relief for the least developed countries. Second, we adopted a declaration on the Middle East – the Barcelona Declaration. The declaration underlined the fact that the Middle East is in the grip of an extremely grave crisis. We called on both sides to take immediate and effective action to stop the bloodshed. We reiterated that there was no military solution to this conflict and that peace and security could only be achieved through negotiations.
I also had an opportunity to have some brief exchanges with Prime Minister Blair on a range of Northern Ireland issues.
We made significant progress in Barcelona but we acknowledge that more needs to be done. The Lisbon agenda, and indeed the European Union, touches each citizen of every member state in a real and material way. The positive outcome of the Barcelona Council is a clear demonstration that Europe works for all of its citizens. I believe it is further proof that Ireland's place is within the EU, as an active, contributing, involved member state, actively pushing those policies that are critical to the further social and economic development of both the EU and Ireland.