Integreon CEO Bob Gogel said it is high time that the EU accepted that partnership with the business community was the only way forward. Bashing of business provides little incentive to invest in Europe, he said in an article in The Parliament Magazine. Mr Gogel said that Europe was suffering from ‘myeuropia’, a word he invented to convey the ‘short-sighted and blurry vision as to what Europe can and should do for itself and its citizens.’
He added that at the recently convened fourth annual conference of 'The State of the European Union', held at the Palais d'Egmont, business executives discussed how Europe could become more competitive and attractive to foreign investment. They proposed actions which were presented to comission president Jose Manuel Barroso, with investment in ICT and life-sciences and energy top of the list. More flexible labour markets had to be created to ‘ensure higher increase access to job opportunities’ with the creation of an employment agency at the European level an idea put forward by the group. The executives also looked at competitiveness and innovation as well as a plan to market Europe to foreign investors.
Consensus
Mr Gogel said: ‘The new EU leadership which will drive forward a future agenda must exchange their rose-coloured lenses for corrective lenses that allow them to see what is really going on in the economy. Without the support of the business community, Europe will not move forward. As Asia continues to enjoy comfortable growth and the US has clearly exited its multi-year economic downturn, the message to European politicians is quite clear to me. Now is the time to drive for consensus around a limited number of priorities, and get buy-in from both national and EU leadership teams and turn 'myeuropia' into a 2020 vision.' Source: TheParliamentMagazine.EU
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