Transcript of press conference given by the Prime Minister and the President of the European Commission, Mr Jose Manuel Barroso in Brussels.
Read the transcript:
President Barroso:
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen. I would like to welcome Prime Minister Gordon Brown back to the Commission.
We are, as you all know, living in unprecedented times and I also believe we are seeing unprecedented action at the European level. And I want to pay a very sincere tribute to the role that Prime Minister Brown has played and is playing in these matters. He has acted as an impetus to the action that we have been taking collectively. He has been very clear from the beginning that he was developing a British response, but also seeking to contribute to a Europe-wide solution and also to a global solution.
In the last couple of weeks we have created a Community package for financial recovery and future stability. Now we need to take this to the next level. Europe is leading the global response. We must continue to do so. An urgent priority is to further deepen coordination at the international level, and specifically with the US. In fact this weekend, together with President Sarkozy, I will meet President Bush and I believe it is critically important that the United States and Europe and others, we appear together facing this situation and also coming with concrete proposals for global regulation.
This is very important to be discussed today at the European Council and I am also very happy to see that we have convergent views about the conclusions that we are preparing for this European Council today.
I am also glad that the Prime Minister and I fully agree that we must press ahead on climate change for example, but afterwards of course I would like to answer your questions. What I believe is important is that we understand that climate change is not an optional extra, as I said yesterday it is not an aperitif or a digestive that we take only when we are feeling good. No, no, it is a challenge, a real challenge that does not disappear because of the financial crisis. So let’s not make now regarding climate change the same mistakes that were made before regarding the financial crisis, not to anticipate the issue, let’s have a strong commitment to this, of course with the necessary flexibility in terms of the [indistinct] but let’s keep to the targets that were unanimously approved by the Heads of State and Government last year.
So thank you very much Gordon for this exchange of views and let’s work together in Europe, and beyond Europe, to try to come to positive solutions on these matters.
Prime Minister:
Can I begin by thanking President Barroso for his friendship, for his hard work in bringing together a European response, and for his leadership of the European Commission and of Europe. And I think the significance of the events of the last few days, when Europe came together through the Euro Group to take common action to deal with the financial crisis, these are decisions that matter not just for a few days but they matter for what is going to happen over the next few years.
And I think we now see round the world the major economies taking similar action: liquidity being brought into the system, we have the recapitalisation of our banks so that they are stronger for the future, and we have the resumption of the funding that banks can do to small businesses and mortgage holders and the general public ahead of us if we can get these programmes through.
So today is an important moment for the European Union, all 27 countries meeting together. I hope we will find agreement also from the whole of Europe on what needs to be done, that all countries within the European Union will feel part of the programme that is necessary to stabilise the financial system and then to move the economy of Europe forward.
I believe that Stage one has been the stabilisation of the financial system, creating liquidity, recapitalising our banks and trying to get medium term funding moving forward. I believe we have also to move to Stage two, and just as Europe has worked together on Stage one with exemplary unity and leadership from President Barroso and President Sarkozy, so too on Stage two we must work together for common purposes.
Stage two is to make sure that the problems that developed in the financial system, problems that we know started from America, that these problems do not recur again, and we give people the confidence that we have taken the action that is necessary to root out the irresponsibilities and excesses in the system, and to make sure that the rules of the system are such that we have proper disclosure and proper transparency, that we have supervision in areas where supervision was previously not required but we now know is necessary, and we have international cooperation, European cooperation, then international global cooperation to deal with the management of the international financial system, a proper early warning system, proper coordination in crises and of course an agreement that we can work together to keep through macro-economic policy as well as proper supervisory arrangements the world economy moving forward.
I also believe that we have got to deal with difficult problems that will arise in many countries round the world, and we will have to have new arrangements for countries that are facing these problems, some of which we know about, some of which will become known in the next few days.
And I do also agree with President Barroso that this is not the time to abandon a climate change agenda which is important for the future. What we have seen over the last year is that oil prices have risen significantly, and so the arguments for taking the action to reduce carbon consumption are not simply the arguments about environmental decay and disaster that could befall us, they are arguments about energy security and they are arguments about the affordability and making us less dependent on a volatile commodity. So I believe that the climate change agenda is part of the solution to many of the problems we face as a world economy today.
I look forward to the meeting of the European Council. Let me once again thank President Barroso for his leadership, for immediately taking the action that was necessary at a European level to persuade people that new measures had to be taken, and the success of the summit at the weekend is in no small measure due to President Sarkozy’s convening of it, and President Barroso’s leadership in that summit being successful.
Question:
This is for the Prime Minister please. I wonder if you could give us a few more details about your Bretton Woods II proposal and tell us if this is likely to make Britain less resistant than it has been in the past to tighter regulation of mortgage and other lending?
Prime Minister:
Can I just say that it becomes obvious now that we are dealing with global financial markets. 10, 20 years ago we had national capital markets, we had European capital markets, we now have global financial markets, but what we do not have is anything other than national and regional regulation and supervision. And so if we are going to sort out global financial problems that are recognised to be global, we need better ways of doing this.
So the IMF has got to be rebuilt as fit for purpose for the modern world, we need an early warning system for the world economy that can involve the supervisors in different countries, where international or multinational companies work in a whole series of different countries, they themselves are agreeing that instead of having 15 different supervisors meeting separately, that you have a college of supervisors to deal with these issues. And there is no doubt that round the world there is insufficient transparency, too much opacity, too little information about what are the problems that if known about early on can be dealt with.
So the rebuilding of the financial international architecture requires exactly the same vision that was seen in the 1940s when we created the IMF and the World Bank and the United Nations, now we have to create the institutions that are relevant, not for national and sheltered economies, but are relevant for global economies with global capital movements and global competition. And this is not only an academic task for the future, it is an immediate task, because to build confidence about the future, which is essential for every saver, and every depositor, and every business, we have to show that we are dealing with the problems that caused the events of the last few months in the first place.
Question:
Prime Minister, unemployment figures are out today, what can you do to help people in the real economy? And President Barroso strong words on the environment, but your Commissioner is already concerned that those plans will be weakened down today.
President Barroso:
About the climate change, I have stated clearly that we remain committed to the goals that were agreed unanimously by Heads of State and government, so the 2020 20 goals by 2020. And we believe it is critically important to keep it, and let’s explain why. Some people say that there are some burdens on the European economy if we do it and others don’t do it, but precisely, if we now give any signal that we are not really committed to doing it, others will not have the incentive to do it. And now that for instance we are listening to much more encouraging signals coming from the United States of America, it would be a complete mistake coming from Europe saying that after all this was not so urgent.
So the best way precisely to defend the European interest in the European industry, and European growth and European jobs is to add a global agreement. But we will only have a global agreement if Europe keeps its leadership role. So of course there is a discussion going on, let’s be very open about it. We know that the financial crisis, some governments feel now more defensive, they are more let’s say reactive, more responsive to some pressure from some sectors in vested interests, it is only natural, I understand that. But the question I am going to put this evening to the colleagues of the European Council is the following: are you going to follow short termism or are you going to show the ethics of responsibility, not only to ourselves here in Europe but to the world? And I think it is a very important debate and you know what is the position, my position and the Commission’s position is.
Prime Minister:
If the last year has shown anything it is that we must deal with the climate change problem because oil is less affordable than it was, because energy security is more important than it was, and when you take the issue of environmental decay, affordability, dependence on oil and security together, it makes it more important that we deal with the long term policies on climate change and the environment.
And the unemployment figures are published later today, so I can’t comment on them at this stage. What I can say is we will do everything we can to help create jobs and to help people maintain their jobs in the British economy. Unemployment and redundancies are something that we wish to avoid wherever possible and we will do everything in our power to help people who have to move jobs, into new jobs, where there are vacancies that exist. And we will come forward with the programmes that are necessary to make sure that there are jobs in the British economy and that we minimise the impact of unemployment. These are difficult times for the world economy.
Unemployment is higher in France, and Germany, and Italy and in America than it is in Britain, but for every person who is unemployed we want to do whatever we can to help people get back into work as quickly as possible.
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