By José Manuel Durão Barroso
Focusing on a business-friendly public administration is indeed very timely: just four days ago, the European Council highlighted once again the importance of the digital economy and innovation across all sectors of the economy, including in particular the public sector.
In fact, I had the honour to present to the Heads of State and Government some of our action for instance relating to ICTs. What ICTs can do to modernise not only our public administration, but also to give more competitiveness to our economies. And we have the occasion also to discuss about REFIT, the programme launched by the European Commission to have administration and legislation fit for purpose and I was particularly happy to see the very strong support of Heads of State and Government to this programme of reducing the administrative burden.
I emphasized that investment and innovation in the digital sphere will be key drivers of future growth, and jobs and competitiveness. Completing the digital single market by 2015 and delivering on our innovation agenda are therefore both high priorities to deliver on our Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
The current economic situation allows for cautious optimism. But the fragility of the recovery means that work towards reforming the economy and creating growth and jobs must continue with determination. We are not yet out of the crisis, as we have been saying. How could we be out of the crisis when we have such high levels of unemployment still in many parts of Europe, including, by the way, youth unemployment?
We have the conditions to overcome this situation provided we show determination in the reforms that have been launched. And a part of this is a business friendly administration. It is obviously a key lever to achieve that goal. But I see it as more than a lever. Together with public sector innovation, I see it as an opportunity:
- An opportunity for competitiveness, for growth and jobs.
- An opportunity to strengthen structural reforms and put public finances on a sound footing
- And an opportunity to broadly connect with our citizens.
The public sector accounts for nearly half of Europe's Gross Domestic Product, public procurement for 20% of Europe's GDP and public sector for more than 25% of the total employment in the European Union. And we know that in some of our countries this is even more impressive, these figures.
This clearly shows how much public sector is part of the solution. It has to be a partner for change. It is about what we can do to stimulate growth. It is also about jobs and well-being.
That's why creating an innovation-friendly environment is so crucial for our businesses and for our economies. From the cost of dealing with administration to the time taken to complete procedures, to the predictability of the outcomes, to the stability of the legal framework, to the quality of public services: these are all moments that can make a difference. These are all elements of a comprehensive reform of public administration and public services in our Member States.
And every effort invested in improving one or other of these services - or even better: all of them - will give projects a better chance to survive and to succeed.
European SMEs expect, and rightly so, less administrative burdens and a more innovation-friendly administration framework.
At European level, the Commission this year, like the previous years, has identified the modernisation of public administration as a priority in the European Union's Country Specific Recommendations. This means the promotion of efficiency measures across the public sector, such as greater use of shared services and information technology solutions or reducing delays in payment to supplies.
I welcome the interest that these targets are now receiving from our Member States because all of them, in a way or another, are indeed now more committed to this public reform administration.
One of the most important areas where we can improve the relation between the public administration and the citizens and business is precisely in the simplification of tax regimes that are extremely complex, sometimes with extremely high costs, this could be avoided with some modernisation.
Significant steps have also been taken with our recent communication to make European Union legislation lighter, simpler and less costly, with the Commission's Regulatory Fitness and Performance Programme, the so-called "REFIT" which I already mentioned because it was a major topic in the European Council last week.
We all know that regulation plays a critical role in making the single market work and maintaining high standards in areas such as the environment or consumer rights, for instance. So I think it's important to make clear to our citizens (namely the public debate) that we need European regulation, because very often this regulation for the internal market is the only way to have the necessary harmonisation so the companies of Europe, namely SMEs, have access to other countries so that the European internal market is able to deliver. And very often, one regulation at European level is able to replace 28 other regulations at national level. But it is true, and the Commission has acknowledged it, that sometimes our legislation is not as simple as it should be and it creates unnecessary burdens.
That is why we have with this programme REFIT made clear that we need to attain those objectives, make the single market work, in the most efficient way, avoiding unnecessary burdens for businesses, particularly the smallest. That is why several years ago I created this Stoiber group, a high-level group presided over by Dr Stoiber, with stakeholders from many sectors in Europe, precisely to reduce administrative burdens in our legislation. And I'm happy to say that basically the European Commission is delivering and in fact sometimes has been over-performing in its goals of reducing Red Tape and administrative burdens.
Nevertheless we believe more has to be done. As I said, quoting Montesquieu, 'Les lois utiles affaiblissent les lois nécessaires', it means 'useless laws weaken the necessary ones'. We need to have less regulation in some areas, where we think that the value added by legislation at European level does not compensate for the bureaucratic procedures and administrative charges or burdens that it originates.
And I'm happy to say that today this is a culture that is permeating the Commission, and I'm sure it's important to recognise that the other institutions should also cooperate with this, from the Council to the European Parliament, and of course at national level. Because let's be honest, and that was a matter that we also discussed in the European Council last week: Heads of State and Government recognise that sometimes the problem is also the so-called 'gold-plating', when legislation comes from Brussels, but afterwards in the transposition more and more layers of administrative procedures are added.
So it's a collective effort, and this is an important point, if you want Europe to be competitive, if you want Europe, as my friend Antonio Tajani is doing his best, to have a modern industrial policy for competitiveness, we need at all levels, from the European Union side to the government side, a commitment to reduce unnecessary administrative burdens. This is critically important for the competitiveness of our economy.
At Member States' level, public sector innovation is also key to reduce the administrative burden for our businesses and create more favourable conditions for them to develop and expand. We already have a number of success stories that show what can be done. In fact from that point of view, the sharing of best practices is extremely interesting. In the last meeting we shared the experience from Estonia, in terms of what they have done in their e-government, to other examples in Finland, to other examples in Portugal, where we have seen some initiatives taken by the government that have simplified in a very considerable way the life of business.
However – and let's be honest about the results – however, a 2012 Eurobarometer survey on public sector and company innovation revealed that four out of five companies think public services need to work harder at becoming more innovative. Besides learning from good practices, public administrations need to foster innovation and encourage their workforces to contribute to this process.
The crisis we have endured has taught us a lesson: structural reforms are not an option, they are indeed indispensable.
We need to have balanced public accounts and to consolidate structural reforms in order to ensure Europe's competitiveness. This is why we have targeted our efforts towards a financial sector at the service of the real economy; towards policies promoting competitiveness and sound public finances; and towards a genuine Economic and Monetary Union that includes a banking union with a strengthened social dimension.
Member States work, and rightly so, on more efficient administration or services delivery, to help them address today's growing budgetary pressures and to better define policy responses to tomorrow's challenges. New technologies are there to do better with less.
We have everything to gain from making these reforms and investing in innovation in order to keep our competitive edge in the traditional sectors but also in the reform of our industrial policy.
Public finances also have everything to gain from innovation. Let me just take two examples:
- The adoption of e-invoicing in public procurement across the European Union could lead to substantial savings. Indeed, the Commission estimates that it could save up to €2.3 bn across the European Union.
- Moving to e-procurement can save substantial public money too. Contracting authorities and entities that have already made the transition to e-procurement commonly report savings between 5 and 20%.
Given the size of the total procurement market I mentioned earlier, each 5% saved could return around €100 billion to the public purse which is really impressive. Once again, in our meeting at the Heads of State and Government level last week we discussed some cases of success in some of our Member States which have made these reforms of public procurement with very encouraging results.
Indeed, public sector innovation can save a lot of money. Public money. Taxpayer's money. Saved for other projects. Hence, public sector innovation becomes a driver for competitiveness. This works for all levels of government. From local to regional to national and to the European level.
A lot is already being done. However, I think that public sector innovation still tends to happen randomly, rather than as a result of deliberate strategic efforts. This is a pattern that we have observed in different Member States. We see that in some cases there is a Minister or a State Secretary or some promoter who has done something, sometimes with what I call 'administrative charisma', who was able to convince their stakeholders and there are results. But not necessarily in a sustained manner across all our Member States. And this shows precisely that one of the difficulties that we have in dealing with public administration, as you know, is the very uneven character of those administrations.
Some sectors are quite open to innovation, they are ready to support it; some sectors to be honest resist it, they don't want this innovation to happen. This is why we need the political ownership of the governments of Europe, of course here in the European institutions as well, but we need an ownership of these reforms and those reforms not to be just a kind of one-off or a demonstration, or a pilot project, but to be a real effort across the board and sustain over time. Determination, sustainability, this is critical if we really want to succeed.
This is in fact one of the key findings of the European Public Sector Innovation Scoreboard, a pilot instrument to measure how much the public sector is responsive to business and citizens' needs.
Last but not least, public sector innovation serves citizens and social cohesion, creating a more growth-friendly environment and this matters to business too.
Europeans citizens expect, and rightly so, public services that they can trust and rely on. They range from modern education systems and efficient employment services to well-organised health services.
A number of key Commission recommendations in this direction have also been endorsed by the European Council last June.
The Commission, as I've said before, has identified once again this year the public administration reform as one of the priorities. Indeed, we need to better connect public sector innovation to the implementation of relevant policy objectives notably in the employment and social field.
As a recent example, the Social Investment package for growth and social cohesion that we have adopted last March, offers guidance to Member States on how to put a greater focus on policies that strengthen people's capacities and skills and remove barriers to finding work.
Public sector innovation also helps empowering citizens, leading to greater social cohesion. We have an excellent example of this right here in Brussels, with the initiative called Fix my Street. Citizens have the possibility to report directly to the local services when they see a problem in the street, from a damaged road sign to a pothole. They can download an app and play their part as they go. It's easy, it's quick, and it's user-friendly. And they see that their comments matter. So this idea, I believe, is also very important.
The public administration reform and the public innovation in general not only has to be owned by the leaders, by the heads of governments, by the governments, but also to have a bigger participation of citizens, so that citizens can see a real difference. If not, there can be also some societal resistance. That's why mobilising the digital tools, that's why using the possibilities offered by the digital communication to communicate and to express the preferences of people is so important.
Last June, the European Commission awarded the European Prize for Innovation in Public Administration to celebrate innovative, forward-looking public initiatives which benefit citizens, firms, or the research sector.
These initiatives show that, by harnessing new ideas and technology, public sector innovation matters both for citizens and for our economies.
At the same time we are trying also at the European Commission level to innovate in the reform of our administration, a very complex and interesting administration. And indeed we are making these reforms and also trying to connect better with people through our Citizens' Dialogues. I believe this is very important, also having in mind the need to have across all Europe, from European institutions to governments, that effort of linking better with the concerns of our people.
To conclude, let me say that serving our strategy for growth and jobs, serving reforms for sound public finance, serving our citizens, these are major objectives that public sector innovation can help us to achieve. The Commission is fully committed to creating the right environment for businesses and it welcomes the commitment of Member States to work towards this direction too.
But more still needs to be done to deliver on our objectives.
The Greek presidency of EU must be annulled, because the kleptocratic alliance of Pasok mafia and Nea Democratia mafia cannot be trusted. The freakish government of Greece stole my computer, my files, and my life in cold blood! Basil Venitis, venitis@gmail.com, http://themostsearched.blogspot.com, @Venitis
Whenever the European Commission (EC) does something very stupid, it calls it smart. Smart has become a European euphemism for very stupid! EC declares the Cohesion Fund is smart. But Cohesion Fund is taking money from the poor people of a rich EU country and giving it to the rich people of a poor EU country!
EC considers spending smart! But growth cannot come from government spending, but only from elimination of VAT and drastic reduction of taxes, regulation, licensure, bureaucracy, and political corruption. Whenever EC squanders money, it calls it investment. Investing is now an EC euphemism for squandering!
SOZIALE MARKTWIRTSCHAFT
The main problem of Fourth Reich is the European economic and social system that spreads the cancer of socialism. The European Soziale Marktwirtschaft prefers social policy based on income redistribution to productive work. It prefers free-time and long holidays to hard work. It prefers consumption to investments, debts to savings, security to risk-taking.
All of it is part of a broader civilizational and cultural problem, deeply rooted in the European continent or in most of its countries. It can't be exterminated overnight, it can't be changed as a result of one or another EU summit, it can't be changed by painless cosmetic changes. It requires a deep systemic change. Most Europeans are disappointed in Fourth Reich.
Europeans face three over-arching challenges: 23% VAT, huge taxation, and huge political corruption. Nevertheless, Olli Rehn, Ole Ruin, declares we face three other over-arching challenges: First, we need to find a solution to the challenge of sustainable growth. Second, we need to continue with on-going efforts to meet the challenge of fiscal sustainability. Third, we have to meet the challenge of rebuilding the Economic and Monetary Union.
Nigel Farage muses it is remarkable that the European Union got 960 billion euros from EU taxpayers, despite the fact that the accounts have not been signed off for 18 years in a row. If this was a company, the directors, or in this case the Commission, would all be in prison.
Fourth Reich is run by uncharismatic bureaucrats. This is the fault of Eurokleptocrats who prefer to elevate weak figures, who won't meddle too much. Van Rompuy prefers writing haikus, Ashton is manipulated by socialists, and Barroso likes to play the Messiah of Third World. Eurokleptocrats want to transform the confederation of EU to the federation of USE (United States of Europe), enslaving all Europeans to Brussels and spreading the cancer of socialism.
Most Europeans are disappointed in Fourth Reich. European commissioners have become bumptious bugaboos who offer no real service, but propaganda and obstacles. They make huge incomes for brainwashing us, giving us hard time, and boycotting our efforts for a free and happy life. Laissez-nous faire, Let us do! The European Commission is just an extra layer of government, an extra layer of oppression, an extra layer of bureaucracy, and extra layer of inertia. Who needs that?
Though commissioners are supposed to do different things, they all do one single thing, spinning EU propaganda. So in reality, Fourth Reich has 28 commissioners of propaganda, 28 Goebbelses! Like Joseph Goebbels of Third Reich, they frequently deliver speeches on the benefits of Fourth Reich, but never about the costs. Their disgusting daily propaganda costs many billions of euros, and it adds insult to injury.
The libertarians of eurozone wait for Scarlet Pimpernel to save them from the banking union, financial transactions tax, the huge taxation, the huge regulation, the 23% VAT, kleptocracy, antitrust armageddon, and the cancer of socialism. The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, a secret libertarian society, rescues eurozone libertarians from the daily executions of the reign of socialistic terror. Legendary Scarlet Pimpernel took his nickname from the drawing of a small red flower with which he signs his messages. Scarlet Pimpernel helps corporations move out of eurozone.
Fourth Reich was not initiated on March 25, 1957 in Rome, but on August 10, 1944 in Strasbourg! Fourth Reich originates from the Red House Report, a detailed account of a secret meeting at the Maison Rouge Hotel in Strasbourg, a couple of blocks from today's Eldorado of Prostitutes (EP), on August 10, 1944. There, Nazi officials instructed an elite group of German industrialists to plan for Germany's post-war recovery, prepare for the Nazis' return to power, and work for a strong Fourth Reich.
The three-page, closely typed report, marked Secret, copied by British spies and sent to the US Secretary of State, detailed how the industrialists were to work with the Nazi Party to rebuild Germany's economy by sending money through Switzerland. They would set up a network of secret front companies abroad, wait until conditions were right, and then grab power with various hoodwinking treaties.
Jean Monnet, founding father of Fourth Reich, says in a letter to a friend on April 13, 1952: Europe's nations should be guided towards the super-state without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation.
You remember this quip from former Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel during the financial crisis: You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What matters to statists is that they see an opportunity in a pseudocrisis to shape public perception and manipulate public opinion. The financial crisis yielded a government takeover of the financial sector. The healthcare pseudocrisis yielded a government takeover of the healthcare system. What do you think Eurokleptocrats are going to do with the crisis of PIGS? They’d be happy to transform the confederation of Fourth Reich to a federation. You should take the blood libel seriously.
There are events in history known as false flag events. These are staged by a government usually to distress the public, so the government can do something that the public would otherwise disapprove. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is flying the flag of a country other than one's own. Lyndon Johnson’s phony Gulf of Tonkin pseudoevent started the Viet Nam War in 1964. This was deemed necessary to begin a full scale war with public approval and is now well documented as a false flag event. It never happened. Now PIGS are the false flag to transform the confederation of Fourth Reich to a federation.
I consider the European Union null and void confederation, because Europeans did not vote for any constitutional treaty! Eurokleptocrats pulled off the biggest powergrab in history by imposing a camouflaged constitution, bypassing all nonos. The Nazi dream for Europe was finally fullfilled - ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuehrer - one people, one empire, one leader.
The Lisbon Treaty is Eurokleptocracy's Pyrrhic victory. It created a confederation, Fourth Reich, without a popular foundation. EU lacks legitimacy among Europeans. Eurokleptocrats created a situation where the citizens of slave States live their lives with a resigned feeling that the EU project is not their own.
Fourth Reich is an illegal confederation that has no voted constitution, a flag no one salutes, an anthem no one sings, a Fuehrer no one can name, a parliament of prostitutes, a capital of huge bureaucracy no one controls, a currency that soon will not exist, rules of fiscal behavior that no member has been penalized for ignoring, a commission which is the Eldorado of corruption, brutal cybercops, and kleptocrats galore! Ode to Joy is the anthem of Fourth Reich. It is based on the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, and it’s used without lyrics.
Fourthreichian fiscal union is the Trojan Horse for overall harmonization of economic rules, policies, and laws in Fourth Reich. Any eurozone problem is interpreted as a consequence of the lack of harmonization and leads to another wave of a creeping harmonization. Fuehrer Merkollande frequently declares that coordinating tax policies and labor laws is not just about currency issues but also about political cooperation, which has to be deepened. In other words, more enslavement to Brussels, transforming the confederation to a federation!
Vaclav Klaus points out the current centralization of power to Brussels is based on an irrational but very easily embraced story that nation-states are responsible for wars. This is what the children are taught at schools. This is what Eurokleptocrats repeat when they run out of arguments. It is much worse than we assume, they probably even believe in it! We must patiently argue that the only guarantee for peace is democracy, freedom, and prosperity, not global governance.
Klaus muses that in good economic weather, even morons could function. When bad weather came in, all the weaknesses, inefficiencies, discrepancies, imbalances and disequilibria became evident and the monetary union ceased to properly function. This can´t be considered a surprise. Eurokleptocrats did not want to take this into consideration. Their way of thinking was evidently based on a communist type of reasoning: economic laws do not exist, politics may dictate economics.
The most imminent issue which asks for being addressed now is the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. This crisis is the tip of a much bigger iceberg. The crisis in Europe goes much deeper. Crisis is a process of creative destruction. Not everything can be saved and maintained. Something must be destroyed or left behind in this process, especially the wrong ideas. PIGS might have to be slaughtered.
Klaus asserts we should get rid of utopian dreams, of irrational economic activities and of their promotion by European governments. Part of this implies that even some states must be left to fall, such as PIGS. Eurokleptocrats keep saying that such a solution would be costly. It is not true, the prolongation of the current muddling through is more costly. We have to explain to Eurokleptocrats that the costs they are afraid of are already here, the costs they have in mind are sunk costs already.
Fourth Reich should introduce radical systemic changes:
· VAT and financial transactions tax must be abolished.
· Europe has to get rid of the cancer of socialism.
· Eurokleptocrats should not try to mastermind the markets, to micromanage the economy, to pseudoproduce growth by government stimuli and incentives.
· Europe should start preparing comprehensive reductions of government spending.
· Climate-scare mongers must be stopped from taking over much of EU economy under the banner of flawed ideas.
· Europe should start decentralizing, deregulating, and desubsidizingits society and economy.
· Europe should forget about fiscal union, banking union, and political union.
· Europe should return to democracy which can exist only at the level of microstates.
· Religion, state, justice, health, and education should be separated.
· Government should not own any property.
HALVE THE EU BUDGET AND THE SALARIES OF EUROCRATS AND MEPS NOW!
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