German, French Industry Join Forces to Urge EU Liberalization
One week before the Barcelona summit, leading industry associations from Germany and France have come together to call on the governments of their two nations to abandon their reluctance to reform and take the lead in pushing forward the flagging liberalization process within the European Union.
Handelsblatt has seen a catalogue of demands drawn up by Germany’s BDI industry confederation and BDA employers’ association together with MEDEF, France’s leading industry confederation. Amid a growing dissatisfaction with the work of the two governments, the three bodies have sent their catalogue to both Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and President Jacques Chirac.
BDI President Michael Rogowski told Handelsblatt that the two governments had used “delaying tactics” when approaching any structural reforms or questions relating to the liberalization of infrastructural markets. The introduction of structural reform in Europe must not be put on ice just because of general elections in France and Germany, Rogowski said.
“It corresponds neither to the spirit of Lisbon nor to the expectations of German industry that, for example, efforts are made to open up the electricity market for big industrial clients while the advantages of further liberalization are, for the time being at least, closed to private consumers,” Rogowski added.
At the Lisbon Summit in 2000, the EU set itself the goal of becoming the world’s “most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy” by 2010. At the Barcelona summit on March 15 and 16, the EU leaders are due to review progress towards achieving this goal.
In their catalogue, the three German and French industry bodies demand complete EU market liberalization in infrastructural areas such as electricity and goods transport by rail. France is urged to carry out the “long-overdue” implementation of the EU guideline on electricity and gas.
For Germany, it is acknowledged that there has been progress towards the liberalization of some markets, but there are areas where serious catching up needs to be done, particularly postal services and local transport services. The government is urged to step up its efforts towards a reform of the labor market.
DIHK, the German federation of chambers of trade and commerce, last week called for ambitious goals to be set for Barcelona. But preliminary talks among EU governments revealed little readiness to move forward, DIHK said.
