We will not discuss the EU competitiveness strategy.
In a new opinion, how can the competitiveness gap be bridged between the core and the peripheral member states?
Competitiveness is an issue for Europe as a whole and for each of the member states.
For Europe as a whole, we have to remain competitive to enhance our competitiveness compared to emerging economies and even to the United States economy.
And that we have to do with the competencies of the European Union as a European Union.
That means, for instance, strengthening the single market.
And that's why the Commission launched these ideas about the digital union, an energy union, strengthening our industrial base, also in the military sector.
They're also using to the full the untapped potential of the single market.
Not only in terms of free movement, but also in terms of what we can call microeconomic policy or industrial policies.
That's something we can do together.
There are other instruments. The European budget provides the biggest scientific programme in the world, more than 70 billion euros engaged in seven years.
In many domains, we are already competitive again due to those efforts of innovation and of research and development.
Again, we have to do this at a European scale. A national scale for a lot of initiatives is not sufficient enough anymore.
So we have this European competitiveness problem.
We are lagging, for instance, in the digital.
We are the creators of the Internet, but the innovators of the Internet and the commercial application of the Internet that we lost.
American firms were much more creative and took much more initiatives than our companies.
And then, of course, you have the problem at the level of the member states, rising their own competitiveness in terms of wage and in terms of non-wage.
In opening also their internal markets, making their internal markets more flexible in the services sector.
A lot of possibilities still open.
We have to raise our competitiveness in the longer term by reforming our pension systems.
By having that they cannot do it alone, but the level of the member states, something can be done at the level of legal migration.
Because in some of the countries there will be shortages in the labour market.
So we have to find solutions for this and migration is one of them.
So the member states had to use a broad range of instruments to enhance our competitiveness.
We know that there could be an imbalance in the Union.
For instance, Germany started with wage moderation long before the banking crisis, a few years before the banking crisis.
And they are reaping the dividends of it later on, because they became much more competitive than other countries.
So now it is the moment, and this is also happening, could be not enough, the moment that they can raise their wages,
so that they can import more, because there is a higher purchasing power,
and also imports coming from other eurozone countries, creating growth also in those countries.
Can you impose it? No, but it would be good if there is this restoration of a balance inside the eurozone.
In other countries wage moderation is also needed to make it more attractive for employers to hire people.
In my country, we started a few years ago with the policy of wage moderation,
not only making our economies more competitive to other countries, mostly neighbouring countries,
but also changing the relation between the cost of capital and the cost of labour.
And so making it much more interesting to hire people and to engage people.
And we see successes of those policies in the labour market in a very clear way after one year or two years already.
So competitiveness is a topic that is not only limited to the EU as an EU,
and not only limited to wage, it's a much broader problem.
And you have here also to look at the balance inside the union,
so that some countries embark on a much more stimulating policy,
that others can import more, so that gross is more evenly spread among the member states
and enhancing the gross level of the eurozone and the union as a whole.
The EU competitiveness policy is sometimes criticised for focusing too much on reducing direct and indirect labour costs.
How would you answer that kind of criticise?
I would answer the same way as I answered your other question,
that you have to look also at the non-wage costs.
If the German industry is one of the most competitive in the world,
it's not only due to the policy of wage moderation.
It plays a role, but it's not the only factor.
Innovation was an absolutely key factor in the automotive industry and in other industries.
Quality of the products in general was a brand with which the German industry
conquered huge markets in Asia, in China and elsewhere in the world.
So it's not only your right, a question of labour costs is much more than that,
but it takes time, it takes investments, it takes not only investments in physical capital,
it takes investment also in human capital and in research and development.
You have not results in that kind of approach after one or two years.
It's a longer term project and I think a lot of countries can take Germany as an example in this area.
To conclude with a more general question, you said in a book that we are now in a period of disenchantment
and we need not re-enchantment, but real results based on a lot of effort.
In your opinion, which steps are necessary to build a stronger and prosperous European Union?
I think disenchantment is now a soft word. I have write it down a few years ago.
Now the situation is even more serious than we envisaged a few years ago,
because at that time there was no knowledge of what happened in the refugee crisis later on, in Brexit,
we had no clue on what could happen in the United States, for instance, and so on.
At that time I said we need to show results to the public in order to convince them about the relevance of the European project.
We have to deliver on a broad range of topics.
At that time it was really focused on employment, on jobs, on economic growth, on the sustainability of debts and pension systems.
I think we know now that we have to do more, because the situation changed.
And we have, as I said, to protect people better, not only in the socio-economic field.
We have to protect people better also on a broad range of topics, among them migration,
among them terrorism, among them rising inequalities.
And this is absolutely key. And this protection, it has to be translated in policies,
and those policies have to produce results.
So again the word results is absolutely essential.
Do we have already results? To some extent yes.
We are creating 5 million jobs in the eurozone between 2014 and 2017, 5 million.
It was not really considered a few years ago that we could do this.
We saved the eurozone. We stamped the massive influx of people coming from Syria, from Afghanistan, from Iraq.
At a certain moment there was this prospect of millions to come. That prospect is over.
I put aside a little bit now the human aspect of all this. I'm just speaking about stemming the migration.
We perform better in terms of climate change than our targets, which is, in policy,
really uncommon that we do better than we promised.
So we have results, but not enough to reconquer trust.
And the rapid succession of crisis, what we call the multiple crisis, the poly crisis,
has undermined trust in a dramatic way.
The rapid succession of crisis, I mean the banking crisis, the eurozone crisis, the economic crisis,
refugees, Brexit, terrorism.
So all this was coming one after the other.
And so he created this feeling of uncertainty, of instability.
And even if we have results in some domains, it's not enough to restore trust.
Trust, you know, goes away on a horseback and comes back by foot.
That's in private life, that's also in the life of nations.
But trust cannot come back if we don't change our language.
If we have to stop with this very widespread practice,
that the European is responsible for all the popular measures,
and that the national governments and parliaments are really responsible for the good things.
This repetition of the rose is dramatic for the European idea.
But I go one step further, that we have also to change the language on,
not only on the European Union, but also on all kinds of problems in our societies.
If in some countries we continue to use a rhetoric of hate, of antagonism,
of enemy thinking, sometimes even of racism, of, let's say,
not only blaming your opponents, but even threatening them.
Even if we don't show respect for institutions, as the judiciary.
So this rhetoric of very aggressive rhetoric, if we don't change that way of talking to the people
and talking about the pillars of our societies,
then we will create a very unstable climate in society.
And a depressing one, not restoring trust.
On the contrary, using anxiety, fear and distrust as dominant feelings.
So in politics it's not only about your deeds, it's not only about results.
It's important, of course.
But it's also about your words.
In politics your words are also deeds.
And after the Brexit referendum and the American presidential elections,
we have to be even more aware of this new dimension than before.
