madam president i agree with many of the comments made by my colleague mr heaton-harris
as he correctly said the lisbon strategy commits the eu to becoming slightly ironically the most competitive economy in the world by twenty ten
with just one year to go before that self-imposed deadline i cannot be the only person in this house who wonders and becomes more than a little sceptical about whether we will ever get there
we constantly pass resolutions and the commission constantly produces strategy documents telling us how we are going to get there
it is just that we never seem to arrive
the content of the lisbon strategy was always far in excess of the eu's capacity to deliver it and was in many ways contrary to the whole ethos of the eu over the past fifty years because as mr heaton-harris reminded us much of the eu's employment and economic regulation actually causes more difficulty in achieving the goals of the lisbon strategy than anything else
we are constantly piling on more and more burdens and regulations that force industry out of europe and we have no chance whatsoever of meeting any of the goals of the lisbon strategy
it is about time we were honest with ourselves and admitted that
