Paul Sweeney: The European Commission’s Europe 2020 Strategy is an important long term plan. It replaces the Lisbon Agenda, another long term plan. The latter had the ambition of making Europe the most competitive economy in the world. While there was much success, most commentators agree that the Lisbon Agenda did not meet its targets and that new priorities kept being added, deflecting from the achievement.
It is good that the 2020 Strategy is long term: we need to revert to planning to help sweep up the debris of short-termism.
The 2020 Strategy recognises:
- the depth of crisis
- the importance of the state in the economy – if only to bail out the banks
- the Social Market economy
- the need for reduction in unemployment
- environmental issues
- importance of education & technology
- the Green economy
- the need for a Common Vision & agreed priorities in Europe.
It is worth reminding ourselves that this deep crisis throughout the West was caused by economic fundamentalism. This was only challenged by a few, and even Social Democratic Parties fell under the spell of the market fundamentalists, under which many of these parties still find themselves. It was de-regulation, privatisation, and in Ireland’s case, pro-cyclical tax-cutting, tax-shifting and tax-subsidies to wealthy property investors which caused our deep recession.
Ireland had one of the largest falls in GNP in the world. It will fall by a staggering one-fifth or 19.9% this year, on 2007. This is a €32bn cut in national income in just 3 years.
The successful “exit strategy” can only be achieved by a stimulus.
Not by deflationary regressive policies like this Irish government pursuing, i.e.:
- wage cutting,
- welfare cutting,
- public services slashing,
- pouring cash into Zombie banks - which could be used as a stimulus
The speech to the Institute of Taxation by Mr Lenihan on Friday 26th February, in which he claimed that European stimulus packages were failing, was chilling. It was chilling in that he was declaring that he is a true believer in deflationary policies. Below the front page report of his speech in the Irish Times was a report on retail job losses and firm wipe-outs – partly the result of this government’s policies to date.
The proposal in the Strategy to “empower people in inclusive societies” is welcome but flexicurity should mean that workers’ rights must be strengthened, not reduced, especially with regard to precarious work. A Fair Labour Market must mean good wages, stable contracts and good benefits for those unemployed. The reference to Atypical jobs should spell out that they are to be the exception, not the rule, in the EU. Investment in skills and the elimination of poverty and exclusion should be key.
The plan recognises the need to create “a competitive, connected and greener economy, with greater productivity.” However, as most economists on this blog have pointed out, “competitiveness” is not just about short term movements in wages. This is in contrast to the restricted view of the subject of too many influential Irish economists.
Per the 2020 Strategy:
1. Creating value by basing growth on knowledge
- well-resourced European Research Area
- digital economy.
- innovation and creativity
2. Empowering people in inclusive societies
- Flexicurity – but as stated above, workers rights must be strengthened especially around precarious work
- A Fair Labour Market – must mean good wages stable contracts and good benefits for the many out of work.
- Atypical jobs should be the exception not rule in EU
- Skills
- Deals with poverty and exclusion. In my view, there should be a major 'make poverty history' drive by 2020. Why not?
3. Creating a competitive, connected and greener economy
- Productivity
- Competitiveness - not just short term movement in wages
- Broadband: the ideologically driven privatisation of Eircom has been a disaster
- Invest in Public transport
- Energy
- Industrial policy – indigenous industry
4. Fully exploiting the single market
- Does this mean that there will be tax coordination? What are the implications for Ireland’s myopic obsession with its maximum 12.5% CT rate?
Reading the Europe 2020 Strategy plan, I wondered - does it have a major flaw? When it said it was “supporting growth through full use of the Stability and Growth Pact”, I thought - what??
Has not a coach and four been driven through the Stability and Growth Pact by many states, including this one? Will Ireland still meet its 3% target by 2014? Especially with deflationary policies? Have the EU Commission and institutions like the ECB not recognised that, in a deep recession like this, the pact is, in practice, suspended.
Without some form of fiscal union, such as an EU tax body, is monetary union – the euro and ECB - not akin to one hand clapping? The major fiscal crises in the Eurozone, especially the Greek crisis, have exposed this flaw.
Can Monetary Union work if we do not have greater political union? Surely we must now raise much more taxes centrally (to bail out the banks after the next crash, to bail out the odd country and to meet other crises, e.g. climate disasters)? Thus we must go further than mere EU tax coordination. And even that idea causes palpitations in Merrion Street and in Irish corporate boardrooms. Low company taxes represent virtually the only industrial strategy in the cupboard of many Irish conservative policymakers.
We don’t even have a European Bank Regulator. We don’t have “a mechanism to safeguard the financial stability of the Euro area as a whole” as was stated by Ecofin recently. What about a Eurobond for Euro countries?
A major issue in the next decade, the period of the plan, should be radical reform of Corporate Governance. This means a shift from shareholder value to stakeholder interests, in company law, in EU law and in corporate morality - if that is not an oxymoron. This must be sooner rather than later, and must and be in both the private sector (especially), but also in the public sector. Subsidiarity must be the priority in public sector governance, combined with modern management information and people managment systems.
On the issue of governance, there are some hopeful signs. An international agreement on the Transaction Tax is likely at the G20 in June. Further international rule-making and cooperation on finance and banking is on the cards. It is imperative that it is not “back to business as usual” in firms and in Governments, otherwise, we will soon be back to recession.
It seems to me that we need more effective EU institutions. We also need EU leadership which is more responsible to its people. Neither are in this plan. But the European people gave the conservatives the majority – even after the collapse of a virulent form of liberalism espoused by those conservatives.
President Barroso said that “we need a new much stronger focus on the social dimensions in Europe at all levels of government.” This is not, regrettably, reflected in this 2020 vision.
Paul Sweeney @paulsweeneyman
Paul Sweeney is former Chief Economist of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. He was a President of the Statistical and Social Enquiry Society of Ireland, former member of the Economic Committee of the ETUC, a member of the National Competitiveness Council of Ireland, the National Statistics Board, the ESB, TUAC, (advisor to OECD) and several other bodies. He has written three books on the Irish economy and two on public enterprise, including The Celtic Tiger; Ireland’s Economic Miracle Explained and Selling Out: Privatisation in Ireland, chapters in other books and many articles on economics.
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