madam president i think it is important that we talk about good governance in the sense that it is of course important that we put pressure on all of us to bring in the reforms that are needed but let us not forget that the main good governance we have in our own hands is to ensure that the european union does what the european union should do
we have had some shortcomings there how we have upheld the stability and growth pact is one of those
let us not forget that before we construct new rules we need to stick to the most fundamental rules but let me also point to some other things
regarding financial markets let us talk about financial markets as a part of the economy not as a separate sector because we will never get investments and new jobs if we think this is a separate issue
i was a little bit disturbed when i noted that the chair of the basel ii committee assumed that the new rule for capital requirement will lower economic growth by one
that is a rather low level from him
increasing the capital requirement might lead to less investment and that is really not what we need to do when we want to create a new confidence in the european economy at the same time as we are exiting from the budget deficits we have
let me point to one of the things we can do together and that is to create the knowledge economy
it is a paradox that the more our societies and economies are turning into knowledge economies the less of an internal market we have because the internal market was legislated for industry and the old-time economy and less for the service sector where we need to go further regarding the service directive
let me also say we should be implementing a reform making european universities more independent and more european open for students and researchers and creating a dynamic development in the knowledge society
let us stick to all the things we can do together at european level
that is the best european good governance we can have
