Welcome to the Official page of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic

Mr. President
Ladies and Gentlemen, Honourable Members

I am deeply touched by your invitation to be here today. I am honoured to have this opportunity of addressing you, the representatives of the peoples of Europe, who belong to this great institution, the European Parliament.

I am well aware of the decisive role that this Parliament has played in the successful course of European integration. I have not forgotten the intense and fruitful collaboration with this House when as Prime Minister I headed the first Portuguese Presidency of the Council in 1992 on the theme, may I remind you, of “Setting course for the European Union”. The contribution of the European Parliament was vital both in making the internal market a thriving reality and in carrying out the project of the European Union that came out of Maastricht.

For the third time now, my country is chairing the Council of the European Union. Once again we are confronted by great challenges. Challenges requiring the convergence of the political wills of the Member States and of the European institutions. Now, more than ever, we must concentrate our collective energies and determination on what is truly essential to make Europe stronger and more cohesive. After all, that is what European citizens expect of their leaders.

The Portuguese Presidency will do everything within its powers to create the necessary convergence for the advancement of European construction. I am relying in particular on a frank and open collaboration with the European Parliament, as happened in the previous Portuguese presidencies.

One of the priorities of this Presidency is to finalise the Reform Treaty based on the compromise reached at the European Council in June. It is a compromise that I welcome as a very positive step, and one that I hope will overcome a somewhat erosive period in the European construction process. I therefore call for converging efforts to ensure that the new Treaty can be finalised under the Portuguese Presidency.

Once the chapter on negotiation of the treaty has been closed, the European Union must concentrate with added consistency and renewed confidence on the challenges that worry European citizens: economic growth, employment, security, the environment, energy and globalisation. This is the agenda that Europe must respond to on behalf also of future generations.

This seems to me the right time to underline the value of solidarity as a fundamental pillar of European integration. Solidarity is in fact, a condition sine qua non for the future of European construction, together with subsidiarity, forming a binomial of truly fundamental principles. It is a tangible, practised solidarity expressed in common actions and policies and not a rhetorical solidarity, one invoked à la carte.

I would like to recall and to quote from the Schumann Declaration of 1950: “Europe … will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity”. This reference must continue to guide our steps when constructing an increasingly stronger and more cohesive Union. Today, one of the greatest threats to European integration is losing the idea of belonging to a Union of firm solidarity. To be a real Union we must preserve the feeling of community that was, and not by chance, the original designation of European construction.

One of the specific achievements that created “de facto solidarity” was the concept of economic and social cohesion established by the Single European Act of 1986, in whose negotiations I was honoured to participate and which I signed as Prime Minister of Portugal.

The extraordinary advances made in European integration in the last twenty years would not have been possible without the economic and social cohesion policies. These policies also contributed to political cohesion, economic growth, job creation, territorial cohesion, equal opportunities and even to heightening Europe’s prestige in the world.

New reasons suggest that we should take a fresh look at the principle of cohesion. I am thinking of increasing globalisation, the intense migratory flows and of course demographic evolution, inducing the social and economic imbalances that are inherent to an aging population.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are all aware of the three pillars – social, economic and environmental - on which sustainable development is based. Sustainable development is a core objective of European integration that has been successively restated on many occasions, including in the Lisbon Strategy.

On this occasion, however, I would like to concentrate on the social aspect and in particular on poverty and social exclusion.

The principle of solidarity includes an ethical and moral idea of progress, for without it the founding values of the European idea will fade: the incessant search for peace, the affirmation of freedom and human rights, the spirit of community, the imperative of equity and social justice, the dignification of work and the search for an enhanced and more liberating civic responsibility.

The fact that the fight against poverty and social exclusion has been unequivocally declared a European objective makes us all responsible for finding new solutions to increasingly complex and persistent problems. Together with the objectives of the Lisbon Strategy, the Social Agenda already includes that difficult and ambitious challenge, which we must tackle.

In this regard, I recall that this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the European Social Fund and the tenth anniversary of the European Employment strategy. And this is also the European Year of Equal Opportunities.

As President of the Portuguese Republic I have highlighted social inclusion as a priority of my actions. For one year, my first year in office, I promoted the “Route to Inclusion”, with the aim of raising the awareness of the Portuguese and mobilising them for the urgent need to reverse the trend in the indicators of persistent poverty, unequal distribution of income and exclusion that still affect thousands of citizens.

I am even further convinced today of the need to win that challenge through flexible and innovative solutions: greater accountability of non-governmental organisations and citizens as a whole, greater dialogue between State action and civil society initiatives, the acknowledgement that income redistribution policies do not dispense with, but rather require, the creation of more and better opportunities so that everyone can share the goals of creation of wealth, personal achievement and sustainable development.

Portugal is still a long way short of the European average. But it is also true that Europe as a whole is also some way short of the social cohesion objectives that it aims to achieve and that it cannot forsake.

It is true that the Union’s undeniable prosperity, demonstrated by the economic and social indicators of the last decades, has been accompanied by the less developed Member States coming considerably closer to the European average.

In the meantime, it is important not to confuse the economic convergence of the Member States with the process of convergence of social groups that underlies the requirement for equity and social justice. In this perspective we have to admit that progress has been very limited.

In the five-year period between 2001 and 2005, the risk-of-poverty rate in the countries of the Union stood at 16%. We are speaking of around 75 million Europeans whose disposable income is less than 60% of the average income of their own country.

If we combine this figure with the trends in inequality of income distribution then we must acknowledge that the situation is even less encouraging. In 2005, within the framework of a EU of 25, the income level of the richest 20% was five times that of the poorest 20%. In 2000, that figure stood at 4.5.

A more detailed look at these indicators shows that the old, the unemployed, particularly the long term unemployed, isolated persons and lone-parent families are the social groups facing the greatest risk of poverty and material deprivation.

Other groups, in turn, reveal added and, given what they represent as potential for exclusion, disturbing social risks. I refer to children, people with disabilities, immigrants and ethnic minorities.

In the 2007 Report on Social Protection and Social Inclusion, the Council acknowledges, and I quote, that “Children have a higher-than-average risk of poverty in most Member States. In some, almost every third child is at risk. Living in a lone-parent or jobless household further compounds the risk.”

We cannot ignore the seriousness of this situation.

How can the European Union, which faces the risk of marked aging and sustained demographic recession, not value its most important asset, its children and young people?

Mr. President, distinguished Members of Parliament,

I ask myself if our traditional social protection policies may not be reaching the limits of their efficacy.

Security and social protection policies had a decisive impact on relaunching the economies post-World War II and in moulding modern European societies. What became known as the Welfare State was a legacy that contributed to the very origin of the Union.

With the success of the policies that conspicuously redistribute income, which were inspired by the Welfare State, Europe constructed a high level of social protection that despite differences between States is generally known as the “European social model”. Even with its inherent limitations and defects, the fact is that this social model is part of the European identity today.

Nevertheless, to defend it we must acknowledge the need for the social model to adapt to the new challenges and the new contexts of the global world and of the information and knowledge society that is our own.

Domestic policies predominantly aimed at distributing income are having increasing difficulty producing visible results in the social environment. Their efficacy and sustainability are increasingly being called into question.

When constructing the social policies of the future it is important to enhance the idea of a welfare society in which all of us as citizens must be more responsible and show more solidarity.

It is true that we cannot have social progress without economic growth. However, economic growth based on social destruction is unsustainable and unacceptable.

In most of the countries of the European Union unemployment is the principal cause of poverty.

We need more and better economic growth through more and better job opportunities.

The best protection against poverty and social exclusion we can give citizens is to facilitate their participation in the job market and make them accountable for and proud of their contributions to the production of wealth and well-being, a process that is already called active inclusion.

The objective set out in the Lisbon Strategy – to increase employment rates in the Union to 70% – is a social imperative that must be borne in mind, even if it appears difficult to attain by 2010.

Another way to protect our citizens is to help them with their qualifications, contribute to their capacities to confront the new technological, environmental and cultural challenges, through education and training.

Therefore, it is important for Member States to make it one of their urgent priorities to increase the standards of education and training of the new generations and to make the habit of lifelong learning widespread. This will undoubtedly be a competitive advantage that future information and knowledge-based societies will confirm.

In 2010, we shall be marking the European Year of Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. We shall also be called on to evaluate how far we have taken the ambitions established in Lisbon in 2000. Those ambitions include the objective of strengthening “the investment in people and in combating social exclusion”.

Combating poverty and social exclusion is a goal that is not limited to the geographical borders of the European Union. The external dimension of the principle of solidarity is, in the first place, the reflection of the humanitarian values that inspire the European project. If the problems arising out of globalisation are added to the traditional obstacles to development in poor countries, then the combat against poverty and underdevelopment must be waged on a global scale. Only then will it be successful.

The European Union has added responsibility in this regard and a capital of knowledge and experience that gives it special powers. It must lead the global agenda in this field.

It is within this scope that I wish to draw your attention to Africa, a continent that is so close to Europe, a proximity that is more than geographical, a continent that we should advisedly consider and treat as a priority partner. Europe’s inertia in relation to Africa may carry a heavy strategic price for the Union.

In this context, I attach particular importance to the forthcoming EU-Africa Summit Meeting taking place during the Portuguese Presidency. Now is the time to speak with Africa instead of merely speaking of Africa and its problems.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I do not want to end this intervention without underlining two themes that I consider absolutely decisive for the future of the Union.

The first concerns energy and the environment. These will undoubtedly be two dominant sectors in the 21st century and their evolution will give rise to new geopolitical lines in the global world. Energy and the environment correspond to common vital interests and must be seen as the new driving force of European integration. Here, too, we must build a strong “de facto solidarity”. Economic efficiency, security and quality of life in the European Union depend largely on the success of our energy and environmental policies. I would like to say in this context how much I appreciate the example of strategic vision and determination given by the European Commission and its President, without which the excellent results achieved in this regard during the German Presidency would not have been possible.

Secondly, there is one question everyone is asking: What is the role of the European Union on the international scene and what is its contribution to the construction of a new world order? I consider that ensuring the conditions for Europe to be a central, influential actor in the global, multilateral and multipolar world that is emerging is crucial for the very sustainability of the European integration process. An actor with a firm, consistent and cohesive voice. An actor who is respected and inspires respect. An actor who knows how to defend the founding values and principles of its own model of economy and society.

Portugal was, if I may remind you at this point, one of the countries that led the first wave of economic globalisation in history, and so is well aware that its capacity to act as a credible, influential actor on the world scene is decisive for the future of Europe.

I conclude, Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, by reaffirming that the extraordinary trajectory of European integration owes much to the European Parliament, an institution that has always been at the forefront in defending the values and principles that forged the identity of Europe and wove the “de facto solidarity” bequeathed by the founders.

I am sure that here, in this House, you will have the vision, the will and the energy required to carry out this admirable project of increasingly uniting the peoples of Europe to affirm Europe’s place in the world.