President Barroso At Intermediary Press Conference At European Council – Statement

By José Manuel Durão Barroso, President of the European Commission

Good evening,

This was a very significant first session of the European Council, and since the President of the European Council and the Prime Minister of Denmark as the current presidency of the Council already gave a summary of our work I will not repeat.

I just want to highlight that we have concentrated our discussions on growth and I am extremely happy that the President of the European Council has decided to put this discussion on growth together with the Multi-annual Financial Framework because the European budget is indeed part of our agenda for growth. It is a budget for investment and growth trying to achieve our common European objectives for competitiveness and for cohesion.

So it was a very good and a very deep discussion on all these issues and I really welcome the fact that we could concentrate our attention on the most important concern for our citizens: How can we restore growth and jobs in Europe?

As you know the European Commission has been advocating some of these things many, many times now and the idea of having a comprehensive response to our current crisis – to address short term, medium term and long term issues. That is why at the same time that we are discussing now these concrete measures in terms of growth including investment, targeted investment, we use the occasion to remind colleagues in the European Council about the need to pursue our efforts of fiscal consolidation for stability and also deep structural reforms at national and at European level for instance, at European level, deepening the single market. But of course there are specific issues namely regarding European Economic and Monetary Union that will be discussed later today and tomorrow based on the report prepared by the President of the European Council in close cooperation with myself, the President of the Eurogroup and the President the ECB.

I think it is important to highlight this vision, because this is what investors all over the world are waiting for from us, that we define in clear terms the commitment to our common currency, to the irreversibility of the euro, this is very important, and of course we will address all these issues I am sure tonight and also tomorrow, specifically in the Euro area summit. This is work in progress and I believe we will achieve concrete positive results.