Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The EU-Latin American and Caribbean Summit had its own agenda and the issue specifically of competitiveness of the European economy comes up in the context of Question No. 2 where the Deputy asked whether the agenda for the European Council meeting has yet been finalised. As I said, the EU 2020 strategy is being brought forward for further discussion at the Council meeting. The question of trying to make the European Union economy more competitive is a very challenging one for Europe because of its demographics, because of the competitiveness of other parts of the world with which we trade and because the international investment patterns are such that Europe is getting a decreasing amount of investment compared to the position in the past as a consequence of the rise of the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia India and China. The 2020 strategy is about seeing how we can improve security of energy supply and use the environmental sustainability arguments for new goods and services and products in the future. It is very important that the research and development issue is dealt with effectively because research and development inputs into European industry have been much less than those, for example, in United States industry. To regain competitiveness here requires a step change in approach.

Regarding the idea of further fiscal stimulus, the European Central Bank has been adamant in this regard. In the aftermath of the financial and economic crisis in 2008 there were countries which provided a domestic fiscal stimulus and which must now devise exit strategies for those stimuli.

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