Cox's view: The president of the European Parliament, Mr Pat Cox, yesterday berated EU member-state governments for failing to implement economic policy changes agreed four years ago by the European Council under the so-called Lisbon Agenda.
The agenda, which seeks to make the EU the most competitive economy in the world by 2010, is at least four years behind target, said Mr Cox.
He charged that 40 per cent of the EU Commission directives issued under the agenda had not been transposed into domestic law by member-states.
Addressing a press conference in Brussels after attending a meeting of the EU heads of government, Mr Cox said: "There's a delivery gap that risks becoming a credibility gap." Mr Cox instances several areas where by comparison to the United States and notwithstanding the fact that Europe's economy was larger and its marker greater, the EU was falling behind the US.
Why, he asked, had the EU failed to sort out its patents problem; why did US patent applications outnumber those coming from the EU by four to one; and why did 400,000 scientists feel their futures lay in moving to the US rather than remaining in the EU?
However, he said that as a result of a renewed determination to push through economic reform, which has been a hallmark of Ireland's EU presidency, he was now more optimistic.
He said he felt that aspects of the Lisbon Agenda being pursued now were "slimmer and more focused". And therefore had a better chance of being achieved.
On the question of combating terrorism, Mr Cox said national governments had to trade a balance between protecting civil liberties and basic freedoms, and attacking terrorism.
"There are important public policy trade-offs and they have to be done in the full glare of publicity," he said, adding that terrorism could not be countered by governments acting in secret.
He said he hoped the EU Commission's anti-terror co-ordinator, Mr Gijs de Vries, would first examine what counter-terror measures were agreed by the European Council in the wake of 9/11 and what had been implemented since then by member-states.
Asked about the continuing impasse at the talks aiming to achieve a settlement to divided Cyprus in time for the Mediterranean island's accession to EU membership on May 1st, Mr Cox said it was the view of the Commission that problems being highlighted now about free movement of people and goods across the island's divide were already dealt with in protocols attached to Cyprus' accession treaty.
On the EU constitution, Mr Cox repeated his view that an agreement before the June European elections was better than delaying such agreement until after the poll.