In the EP in Brussels, the EP President&nbsp;&nbsp;Antonio TAJANI makes the opening statement of the European Parliamentary week.

Brussels

TAJANI, Antonio (EPP, IT)

speech

European Mobility Week (T)

European Parliamentary week: extracts from the opening remarks by Antonio TAJANI, EP President

Arrival of EP President Antonio Tajani (3 shots)

Opening remarks by Roberto Gualtieri, Chair of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (3 shots)

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI, EP President, These days are dedicated to look at the European economy governance and to analyse how close it is to its citizens and its companies. It is just not a theoretical exercise but rather it depends future growth and creation of jobs in Europe and, also what our citizens expect from us. Unfortunately the crisis has not yet entirely overcome, growth is still weak, the level of investment is still too low, and unemployment levels are twice as those of the USA.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI, EP President, To be honest, I do not believe that we should be putting austerity against flexibility. I think what we need in the Member States is to reduce public spending. It is impossible to keep out lots of money just to tell the citizens that we are going to do something for electoral campaigning. At the same time, cleaning up the balance sheet is not going to help the real economy unless there is real support for the economy, for industry, for entrepreneurs, for trade and art-crafts.

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Antonio TAJANI, EP President, We need to have policies to stimulate growth and also have solid public finances. It has to be done in the respect of democracy and the citizens. It is very important for national parliaments and for the European Parliament to be involved in this. Each of us have different competencies but a week such as this one is an excellent opportunity where we can exchange with one another on subjects that just not only have to do with high finance, or an elite subject, but rather these are matters pertaining to the daily lives of our citizens, particularly those experience great economic difficulties. Our duty is to look out for the weakest and to prevent them from being left behind. As it says in the Treaty, if we were to believe in a social market economy, we consider the market as an instrument to carry out social policy, it is not an end in itself, it is just an instrument to create social policy as we look to the citizens of the EU.