TÜSİAD Discussion Articles, 2009 / 03 The EU's Policy Priorities for 2010-2014

An Agenda for the European Commission

Mandate of the European Commission Under the Presidency of José Manuel Barroso has come to an end on 31st October, 2009. Although his name was controversial for some circles, European EU leaders have endorsed a second mandate for Barroso as the President of the European Commission. Prior to the vote in the European Parliament, Barroso prepared a report to explain his policy priorities and action plans for 2010-2014. After securing the votes of the members of the European Parliament, he started to work for his second term.

Designation of the new College was a rather long and sensitive period that Barroso had to balance the demands of some existing Commissioners with the expectancies of the member states. At the end of November 2009, he managed to design the new Commission. Now, it is up to the European Parliament to give the consent to the new College.

According to the report that Barroso has presented to the European Parliament we should expect a more prosper, competitive and environmentally friendly European economy with more focus on globalisation. Here are some subjects that Barroso underlines the most:

• Successful exit from economic crisis
- Fighting unemployment and boosting demand
- Smooth implementation of European Economic Recovery Plan
- Keeping interest rates low and leveraging the state aids to revitalise the European economy
- Setting sound exit strategies from stimulus and support measures

• Leading role in climate change
- Promoting sustainable environment policies
- Investment to low carbon technologies to boost employment and growth
- Environmentally-friendly industry, services and technology and relevant legal infrastructure
- Decarbonising electricity supply and transport services

• Boosting new sources of growth and social cohesion
- New approaches for long term growth
- Sustainability, innovation and professional development strategies
- Legal certainty for companies for their long term investments

• Employment strategies for new business environment
- Equal opportunities and social justice for everyone
- Upgrading skills and quality of education to handle the pressures stemming from globalisation

• Creation of single digital market and encouraging high speed internet technologies investments

• Enforcement of Europe’s role in the international arena

• Budget reform and strong cooperation with the European Investment Bank to reach new goals

Members of the New College in 2010-2014

There will be 27 commissioners in the upcoming European Commission; seven of them will also assume the post of vice-presidency. The new College has to be approved by the European Parliament. Before that, members of the College will have to respond to the questions of the MEPs at individual hearings which will be held in 11-19 January. The vote of consent is foreseen to take place on 26 January. 
 

 
BUSINESSEUROPE*’s Agenda For Growth, 2010-2014

With more than 20 million small, medium and large companies, European private sector is represented by BUSINESSEUROPE. Membership to BUSINESSEUROPE is based on voluntary principle. Apart from that, members have to represent a proper portion of the business in their country. It is one of the four social partner organisations in Europe which the European Commission shares draft regulations prior to their approval. This puts TÜSİAD, a member of BUSINESSEUROPE since 1987, in a very special position to have an access to the EU’s decision making system.

BUSINESSEUROPE has initiated a paper to underline what the European business expects from the EU institutions to prioritise for 2010-2014. According to that paper, these are the five challenges that the EU would face in the coming days.

1. Getting out of the crisis
2. Aging population
3. Tackling climate change
4. Access to energy and raw materials
5. Strengthening Europe’s role in the global economy

In order to overcome the difficulties of global financial crisis and getting back the market economy on track, European business initiates the importance of the following issues:

• Rewarding productive investments
• Encouragement of reasonable risk taking
• Protecting intellectual property rights
• Preventing piracy and counterfeit
• Removal of distortions on competition
• Ensuring transparency of the market mechanisms
• Measures for sound and sustainable public finance and social security

In the light of above mentioned priorities, BUSINESSEUROPE’s expectancies from the European institutions could be listed as follows:

• Single Market should be revitalised and integration process should be completed.
• Only successful companies can contribute to social security and public expenditures. Therefore companies should be at the centre of all European policies, so that they can produce first class goods and services, create employment and invent new technologies.
• Emerging countries which are strong competitors of Europe has power to drive the global economy. Europe has to pull its strength together to keep up with its competitors.
• Tackling climate change is a priority for Europe. Appropriate policies to remove obstacles to innovation should be initiated by the EU.
• The EU needs and integrated industrial policy.

Turkey is on the road to fully integrate with the EU. While designing a roadmap for beyond 2010, Turkey should internalise the EU’s policy priorities and adopt them to its action plans. This may help to shorten the way to membership. We should bear in mind that, Turkey will not be a member today. The EU keeps evolving and when the day comes, the EU will be different from today. Therefore Turkey should target the future prospects of the Union to be in line with them. At this very point, TUSIAD’s membership to Confederation of European Business, BUSINESSEUROPE is very critical. TUSIAD reaches and influences the strategically important decisions which shape Europe’s future. Turkey should benefit from this opportunity to analyse the EU’s future strategies and policy priorities to modify its own action plans which could lead to a better membership process.

"TÜSİAD Article Series"comprised of articles on current debates. The articles are prepared by TÜSİAD researchers. Opinions expressed belong solely to the author and do not represent the views of TÜSİAD.