§ 27. Mr. DavidTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what her objectives will be at the forthcoming Barcelona summit with special reference to industrial competitiveness. [33821]
§ Ms HewittAt the Lisbon summit in March 2000, Heads of Government acknowledged that Europe needed major structural reform to succeed in the global economy and that companies needed flexible, strong and open markets to enable them to improve their competitive position and create new jobs. The summit set out two ambitious goals: to make the EU the most competitive 521W economy in the world and to create full employment by 2010. The Barcelona summit marks the end of the second year of this 10-year programme.
The Government are a strong supporter of the Lisbon agenda and want the Barcelona summit to reaffirm the EU's commitment to economic reform. In doing this we need to take stock and evaluate progress against the conclusions agreed at Lisbon and set out a future programme of work to ensure that momentum is maintained.
The EU has made good progress in a number of areas—for example, updating the regulation of telecommunications—but progress has been less encouraging in others. We are still waiting for agreement on a Community Patent and updated public procurement rules. We will be looking to Barcelona to give a political push in those areas where negotiations have progressed less positively.