DOCUMENT : JACQUES DELORS: "THE UNION WILL HAVE EXPANSION AND DYNAMISM".

• Position: Speech

His authority remains intact among his European Socialist and Social Democrat friends, whom he came to support, on 28 March in Brussels. His voice is also listened to in the other political formations in the European Parliament, some of whose representatives came to greet him outside the Anna Lindh Hall. Following on from its analytical summary (4296), Europolitics publishes below lengthy extracts of the speech delivered by former European Commission President Jacques Delors (in French) at the invitation of S&D group leader Hannes Swoboda and fellow MEP Harlem Desir. Also attending were Belgian Minister for Public Enterprises, Scientific Policy and Development Cooperation Paul Magnette. The conference marked the official launch of the appeal For a European Socialist alternative'. The paragraph breaks, headings and passages in bold are by Europolitics.a

Mister President, Minister, dear friends, ladies and gentlemen,a

I'm here today to give my unreserved support to the call from my Socialist friends to renew Europe, to get it going again. They know of course that time will be needed. One of the horizons for them of course is the elections in 2014 based on universal suffrage but it's never too early to get started. Solidarity of course is nuanced by certain factors, which many of you are aware of, but I wanted to come here to express my support because those who have signed this call have begun a journey which should help to restore hope in the dynamism of the European project.

Now I know that it's not an easy situation that we find ourselves in. It is not my intention today to come up with demagogic responses. It has never been my style. [...] But it has to be said that the economic and monetary union is hard pushed at the moment. That cannot be denied. We are under fire from the financial markets, and the basic arguments of those who are trying to impose the budgetary pact, because essentially they do not have other ideas up their sleeves. We'll come back to this pact a bit later, because certainly it is a complex beast. At the same time we have the risk of stagnation, which could cause more problems for our employment, further inequalities, and so on. What we are seeing is a decline in Europe for some, and its position in the world as a whole, so I am aware that we are in a tight spot and I'm not going to give any magic answers to that. I'm just here supporting a proposal, which is an attempt to try and get out of the dichotomy between these two approaches.

BEGINNING OF A SOCIAL DEMOCRAT OFFENSIVE

How should we reconcile the necessary financial measures called for by the markets with the need to restore confidence in Europe as a dynamic body capable of economic growth and capable of delivering jobs - which of course means reduced inequalities. I certainly do not underestimate the problem. I think you can see the answers from the governments on the right. When you look at what happened, if you look at for example the government in Spain - a right-wing government, which is trying to reduce its budget deficit but can't manage to bring that into line with the figures which are being put forward - it's really not going to achieve what it is setting out to achieve. When you've got democratically elected leaders resigning in order to appease the market you've got to start to ask yourself questions. We have risks that we need to deal with but we should not fan the flame of the fire associated with that risk. If you think about what happened in Spain and the answer that they tried to provide - what has that done to further the EU?

So I think this is a complex issue, an issue which many Socialist leaders have understood, but the concerns go further than just the Socialist family. Twelve countries have issued a joint declaration showing their concerns about the coming threats. For example Italy is one of the countries, and the other one is the United Kingdom - you can see, now and again it does come back into Europe - welcome back! Of course, our leading figures in Germany, in France people have been calling for a new approach - and that is something which brings us here today. Now I've come to support that approach and I also support a new offensive on the part of the Socialist democratic family. I do not draw a distinction here between Socialist and Social Democrat - I'm a Social Democrat and we are reacting on the basis of our values, on the basis of our European convictions. It is quite clear that we can't continue the way things have gone. So this is something that is giving us a cause and this is something that is driving us towards 2014. A Socialist reform which then could provide the basis for a new call to European citizens. That's two years of work to achieve that. We shouldn't rush into it but we shouldn't get distracted from our goals either.

Of course, in my presentation I'll be talking about the EU17, the monetary union, and then of course the EU27.I know that the permanent president of the European Council does not like these kinds of words but he just has to put up with it. Because the leap towards the monetary union, it was a more radical step than the single market. There were of course requirements associated with that monetary union, which partly we have understood over the last 15 years - but there we are.

CURRENT INSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM WON'T WORK

So I would like to run through the past just to see what kind of lessons we can learn because if we don't remember our past we don't know who we are, and I'd also like to run through some of my principles. I don't want you to take them up of course but they provide the basis for my expose here. And of course I will be looking at the institutional issues as well.aAs you know, without the institutions things don't really work. Lot of the governments have thrown up their hands and say oh here we go again, a new treaty!

So we need to make a leap forward, and this involves work on national and European levels. It's not just about changing Europe - each country has to play its part as well.aNow I support this call but I know that there is a great deal of dissatisfaction at the moment. I work very hard for social dialogue and Europe and I'm unhappy to see that there is a lack of social dialogue now. Why am I upset with this? Not because it runs counter to what I try to do but because social dialogue along with the parliamentary system is one of the bases for democracy. Where the forces of capital and labour have been harnessed together - as did Austria and Germany - that's where we see the best results. And that's what we've lost sight of.

I'd like to come back to the past, first if you think about the single European act, that's something I was very...