Speech by Henri Malosse - Mr Barroso

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Mr Barroso,

You have given us the pleasure of accepting our invitation to address the Committee on the European elections and, as a consequence, on the future of the European Union.

At our last plenary assembly, Christine Lagarde, Director of the International Monetary Fund, was seated in your place. She made the powerful statement that the EU was "on the right track".

Indeed, some results are noteworthy, the product of the unfailing, rigorous policy efforts of the European institutions; of your European Commission, Mr Barroso, but also of the European Central Bank and Mario Draghi at its helm. You have succeeded in reassuring the markets, which are showing the first signs of restored confidence.

Nevertheless, European citizens do not share this optimism. They are the ones who have borne the brunt of hardship, who have suffered austerity, and they are still asking themselves whether tomorrow might be worse than today. Unemployment has not fallen. Purchasing power is still on the decline. Business leaders are still struggling with convoluted rules. And entire generations find themselves excluded from the labour market.

The fact is that the markets will not be doing the voting on 25 May. The people will. They are the ones who will say whether they still want Europe and what face they would like it to have.

Mr Barroso, the European Economic and Social Committee is convinced that it in order to get people to want Europe again, Europe has to get back to where it was; it has to go back to serving its citizens.

We have four months to go before the European elections.

And on behalf of my colleagues and myself, on behalf of organised civil society, which we represent, I would first like to ask you to pass on the message that the efforts required must be more fairly distributed and must serve one single goal: employment.

I also believe that you should use the time left to us before the elections to put forward at least one strong initiative in an area that has a direct impact on the daily lives of Europeans. This would allow you to demonstrate that Europe has real added value.

Thank you. I will now give you the floor.