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Germany stresses social goal for EU anniversary

14 Mar 2007 12:13:09 GMT
Source: Reuters

STRASBOURG, France, March 14 (Reuters) - The European Union needs to put more emphasis on welfare state safeguards alongside free-market economics if it wants to win back public support, EU president Germany said on Wednesday.

As Berlin grapples with how to salvage reforms in the EU's stalled constitution, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said showing Europe's "social face" was vital.

EU leaders are due to issue a Berlin Declaration -- a two-page statement of the 27-nation bloc's achievements, values and objectives -- at a special summit on the 50th anniversary of the founding Treaty of Rome on March 25.

"There is a particularly important message to be sent out if we really want to win back the trust of the people in Europe," Steinmeier told the European Parliament.

"Europe stands for a social model based on economic competition but reconciling that competition with social and ecological responsibility."

He said the EU model included worker participation as well as entrepreneurial freedom, and the summit should spell out that the Union was more than just an economic common market.

Free-marketeering countries such as Britain, Ireland and some of the new ex-communist central European member states, are reluctant to give Brussels a role in social and labour market policy, fearing regulation will damage economic competitiveness.

But French voters rejected a draft EU constitution in 2005 partly due to a perception that the bloc was too slanted towards free-market capitalism rather than public services and social protection.

Steinmeier said the Berlin Declaration should include a commitment to put necessary institutional reforms in place before the 2009 European Parliament elections.

But he did not explicitly mention the constitutional treaty.

Diplomats say the word "constitution" will not appear in the text, nor will a specific deadline, because of opposition from countries that have not ratified the treaty such as Britain, Poland and the Czech Republic, as well as France and the Netherlands, which voted against it.

"Please let us highlight what brings us together," Steinmeier said. "We very much hope the Berlin Declaration will contain a joint commitment -- a commitment to work to get the preconditions we need in place."

European Commission Vice-President Margot Wallstrom said last week's EU summit setting ambitious goals to fight climate change had "proven doomsayers wrong (and) put to rest the myth that the EU is somehow obsessed with navel-gazing and its own institutions".

The Berlin Declaration should bring urgency to task of sorting out the bloc's constitutional and institutional future, she said.

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Last updated:Wed Mar 14 12:18:18 2007